Unsearchable Riches

Some of the Relationships of Christ to His People

By Edward Dennett

Chapter 9

CHRIST OUR OBJECT.

FROM the first moment that we are awakened by the Spirit of God, Christ is presented to us as our object. Thus when the jailor, wrought upon by the Holy Ghost through the instrumentality of what he may have heard, and the supernatural occurrences of that eventful night, came and fell down before Paul and Silas, and said, " Sirs, what must I do to be saved? " they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" (Acts xvi. 29-31). This is in accordance with the Lord's own words—- "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whoso ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life " (John iii. 14, 15). The reason is evident. When the sinner is made to feel his guilt, God appears to his soul in the character of a Judge—of a holy God, whose claims he has failed to meet, and under whose righteous judgment he has consequently fallen. His one need, therefore, is to find a way of escape, both from his state and the condemnation under which he is groaning; and since this is found alone in Christ, Christ is the first object to which his eyes are directed. St. Paul brings out this truth most fully in the Epistle to the Romans. He says, " All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare [I say] at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Rom. iii. 23-26). Having thus Christ in all the efficacy of His atoning work presented to him, and believing, receiving God's testimony concerning Him—concerning what He is and what He has done —the sinner (now a believer) is justified, cleared from all his guilt—from everything that was against him—and he has " peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. v. 1). He has much more besides; but now we only call attention to the fact that, looking believingly to the object held out before his soul in the time of his need, he is saved. Has he then done with Christ? Far be the thought! For it will be found, on examination of the Scriptures, that the object to which his eye was directed as a guilty sinner, is the object which is still kept before him after that, by the grace of God, he has been saved. Yea, the object to which the sinner turns to find relief from the heavy burden of his sins, is that which is to fill his gaze in all his pathway as a saint, and, indeed, throughout eternity.

We propose, then, to collect a few examples of this — to show that the eye of the believer is ever to be fixed on Christ; that He is held out to us as the one object that is to fill our gaze, and absorb our souls.

(1.) As He is the object of faith for salvation to the sinner, so is He the object of the life of faith to the saint. St. Paul thus writes, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me " (Gal. ii. 20). That is—touching only on the clause we have emphasised —the life which the apostle lived down here had the Son of God as the object of its faith. Corresponding with this are the words of the Lord Himself. When the disciples were plunged into great sorrow at the prospect of His speedy separation from them, He said, " Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me " (John xiv. 1). He thus teaches that though He was soon to be absent from them, no longer to be seen by their natural eyes, they were to believe-in Him, have Him self as the object of their faith, even as they already believed in God; and thereon He revealed to them the character of the place to which He was about to go. It was the Father's house, a house of many mansions, in which He would prepare a place for them, in anticipation of the time when He should return for them. Meanwhile, they were to be occupied with Him, have Him as their object; and how sweet and blessed a thing it is to raise our eyes to—nay, to have them always upon—Christ as occupied with and for us in the Father's house! The clouds may be very dark round about our earthly path, and trials may abound, but nothing can obscure Him—Him in all the tenderness of His love, in all that He is for us before God—from the gaze of our faith; and light, and joy, and peace always stream from His presence.

But there is more than this. It is not only that He is the object of our faith, but our faith is sustained —we live by Him as our object. Christ as our object is the life of our faith. Thus He said, " As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by (because of—διὰ) the Father: so he that eateth Me shall live by (because of—διὰ) Me " (John vi. 57). Now eating Christ (as has been shown in a former chapter) is but the constant appropriation of Him, in all that He is, by the exercise of faith; and it expresses, therefore, our entire dependence upon Him as the source of life; that just as food sustains and nourishes our bodies, so Christ sustains and nourishes our souls. Thus He is the object, and we live by the exercise of faith, according to that word in the Hebrews, " Now the just shall live by faith " (Heb. x. 38). With Him is the fountain of life, and faith is the channel which connects us with the fountain, and through which, in the power of the Spirit, the life flows. We therefore live both by faith in, and by dependence upon, Christ.

(2.) Christ is also our object in service; nay, the whole of our life has Him as its end and aim. St. Paul thus says, " The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead: and He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again " (2 Cor. v. 14, 15). Still more comprehensive (though of the same character) is his language in another epistle: " To me to live is Christ" (Phil. i. 21). At this time he was in prison, and yet he was so utterly oblivious of self, that he was able to cherish the earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing he should be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ should be magnified in his body, whether it were by life or by death; and he gives as the ground of this confidence, " To me to live is Christ." That was the one object of his life; in all his manifold activities, in all that he desired, and in all that he did, everything had respect to Christ. He was thus, perhaps, the closest approximation to the example of our blessed Lord that has ever been seen on earth. For Christ never sought to please Himself; but always did those things that pleased the Father; He found His meat in doing His Father's will and finishing His work (John iv. 34; vi. 30; viii. 29). This truth is strikingly set forth by the apostle in connection with the death of Christ. " Be ye followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour " (Eph. v. 1, 2). True that He loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; but it was God who was the object before His soul; His glory which He sought, and which was the governing motive of His death; for He became obedient —obedient surely to God—obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

So also it should be with us—Christ alone the object of our lives, of our thoughts, feelings, designs, occupations, activities. We are His, for He has redeemed us with His own precious blood, and He therefore claims us for His own—that we should live not to ourselves, but to Him who has died for us and risen again. What a searching, practical test does this supply! Do I purpose this or that? Is it then for Christ? Do I desire anything? Is it for Christ? Am I busy in service? Is it for Christ? Can I look round my dwelling, and say of all that I behold, It is for Christ? Thus, "for Christ," supplies us with a principle that can be applied to the whole of our daily lives —a principle that should reign supreme, governing us in all our works and ways—a principle which makes nothing of self—of man —but which makes everything of Christ.

(3.) Again, Christ is brought before us as an object to be possessed. This aspect is unfolded to us in Philippians iii. In the beginning of the chapter the apostle gives a list of the advantages which he had as a Jew— as a man in the flesh —and which formed his ground of confidence as such. " If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the Church: touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." He thus had everything which could exalt a natural man in his own eyes before God. Morally, religiously, and ecclesiastically he wanted nothing, according to man's judgment. Nay, more; writing under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, he is able to say that " touching the righteousness which is in the law " he was " blameless." Like the young man who asked of the Lord Jesus, " What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? " and, when referred to the commandments, replied, " All these things have I kept from my youth up,"—so Saul; and he might have added with the young man, " What lack I yet? " (Matt. xix. 16-20). But when Saul, in his zeal persecuting the Church, was on his way to Damascus, the Lord in glory met him—that same Jesus, whom Saul had with his nation rejected and cast out, but now risen from the dead and glorified, appeared to him; and thereon Saul discovered the true value of his precious things in the light of the glory which shone round about him —saw their utter worthlessness, and hence by grace was able to say, " What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for (because of—διὰ) the excellency of the know ledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for (because of—διὰ) whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ" (Phil. iii. 7, 8). Now he had discovered the fine gold, and by the side of it he could see that what he had been priding himself upon was but wretched tinsel, and, estimating it at its proper value, he now desired only to win Christ — i.e., to have Christ as his gain. Everything which had been so precious in his eyes disappeared, and Christ only remained; and it was Christ only that he now desired to possess, not only as his ground of confidence before God, but also as his everlasting possession. For Christ had won his heart, and the heart can never rest until it has gained the object of its affections.

But inasmuch as it was a Christ in glory whom he had thus seen and desired, it was only in the glory that He could be possessed. Hence the whole future course of the apostle was governed by this fact. With heart and eyes fixed upon his object, he says, " I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended " (if I may get possession of that for which also I have been taken possession) " of Christ Jesus." And in the energy of his soul—being all aglow with fervent desire —he adds, " Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forget ting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling (the calling on high—τῆς ἄνω κλήσεως) of God in Christ Jesus." This was the prize on which his heart was now set, and, like a racer, he bent his rapid steps towards the goal, and the varied objects of the surrounding scene passed by him unheeded, or were seen but dimly as he hastened onward, for his eyes were on a glorified Christ, and he could see nought else for the glory of that light. This was the object that possessed his heart, controlled and formed his life below, and drew him unweariedly for ward in the race he ran; while he waited for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would change the vile body of His servant, that it might be fashioned like unto the body of His glory; and then Paul would be both like, and with, his object for evermore.

Such also is the object set before every believer. Well might we examine ourselves by the light of this scripture —by the light of the energy, the ardent desire, the concentrated affection of the apostle. Does Christ, let us. each ask ourselves in the presence of God, so possess our hearts that we desire no other object? Are we satisfied to lose everything but Himself? Do we, like Paul, count all that the natural man esteems, but loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord? The prayer is often heard, and, it may be, presented by ourselves, that our hearts may be set upon Christ. But He Himself said, " Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also " (Matt. vi. 21). If our hearts, therefore, are not upon and occupied with Him, it is because He is not sufficiently our treasure. If, then, we would have our hearts detached from this scene and its objects, we must begin with Christ; we must trace out His manifold perfections, His varied beauties, His ineffable grace and unchanging love, and then our hearts will be drawn out towards Him, and, enflamed with holy desire after Him, He will absorb our affections, and attract us wholly to Himself. We often sing—

     "Jesus! Thou art enough
     The mind and heart to fill;"

and nothing can be truer; but the question for us to answer, when the words are upon our lips, is, Do we know this practically? Can we take the ground of wanting nothing outside of Christ? If we were bereft of everything else, should we be able to say, we are satisfied with Christ? These are searching questions; but questions that need to be answered. For it is only when we know this truth, that no other object will divert our gaze; and then we shall long for the moment when, like Him, we shall see Him as He is, and are with Him for ever.

"For ever to behold Him shine!
For evermore to call Him mine!
     And see Him still before me;
For ever on His face to gaze!
And meet the full assembled rays,
While all His beauty He displays
     To all the saints in glory!"

(4.) He is also set before us as the object to which we are to be conformed. This is implied in what we have just considered; but we have it distinctly set forth in another scripture. We are thus told that God has predestinated us " to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren " (Rom. viii. 29). St. John likewise alludes to the fact when he says, " Beloved, now are we the son s of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is " (1 John iii. 2). But it is St. Paul who brings out this truth in its most definite form. Writing to the Corinthians, and contrasting the ministry of righteousness with the minis try of condemnation, and being led to state the full and blessed place into which believers are now brought, he says, " We all with open (i.e., unveiled) face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. iii. 18). He refers to Exodus xxxiv., where we read that Moses was compelled to put a veil upon his face to conceal the glory that lingered there (after he had come down from the Mount, where he had been with the Lord forty days and forty nights), because that Aaron and all the children of Israel " were afraid to come nigh him." " And [till] Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. But when Moses went in before the Lord, to speak with Him, he took the veil off, until he came out" (vers. 28-34). Only Moses went in, under that dispensation, before the Lord with unveiled face; but now we all—all believers—with open (unveiled) face behold the glory of the Lord, &c.

The truth, then, is, that all who are in the Christian place and position are set down in the light, as God is in the light, and there they behold with unveiled face the glory of the Lord. Christ in glory is the object on which they gaze. This was shown, albeit in an extra ordinary way, in the death of Stephen. " He, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God " (Acts vii. 55). This scene is significant from the fact that now the heavens are opened for every believer, and that he therefore sees, by faith, without a veil, with nothing between, a glorified Christ at the right hand of God. For upon the death of Christ the veil was rent, expressive of the fact that the atonement He made by His death was accepted by God, as a full and complete answer to all the claims of His holiness, so that He could now come forth in all His grace and love to meet the sinner, and bring him, through faith in Christ, unto Himself, to dwell in His own immediate presence, in the holiest of all. Such is the place of every saint of God.

A caution, however, may be needed. It is undoubtedly true that this place belongs to every believer; but it is another, and, indeed, a most momentous question, whether we are occupying it. We are brought into it according to the efficacy of the work of Christ, and through His death and resurrection, and it is thus our blessed privilege to be ever occupied with Christ as our object. God would have us thus occupied; for He would have us share His own delight, in gazing upon the face of Him who has retrieved His glory by becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Are we, then, occupying the place into which we have been brought by the grace of our God, and having fellowship with Himself as to the object of His own heart? Perhaps there is no greater danger at the present time, than knowing the full truth of our position without seeking to answer to it practically. But if we boast in our standing, and neglect our state, we fall into the very evils which characterised the Jews in the time of our Lord. It should, therefore, be a very solemn matter of inquiry with us whether we maintain the attitude of Stephen; whether our faces, like his, are ever turned upward to the glory of the Lord.

But the marvellous thing is, that the Christ we thus behold as our object, is the model to which we are to be conformed. God, according to the purposes of His infinite grace, and delighting to mark His appreciation of the work of Christ, will have us to be like Him whom He has glorified. Even now we can say, " As He is, so are we in this world" (1 John iv. 17), that is, that our acceptance, even now, while in this scene, is as perfect as His at the right hand of God. But the time will come when we shall be fashioned after His own likeness, when even these poor bodies of ours shall also be conformed to the likeness of His glorious body. What grace! That we—such as we were, and such as we are—should be able to raise our eyes to Christ in glory, and be able to say, " We shall be like Him!"

How, then, we may inquire, is this change wrought out in us? This same scripture gives the answer — " We all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord " (2 Cor. iii. 18). While on the one hand Christ in glory is the model to which we are to be conformed, beholding Him there is, on the other, the instrumentality in the power of the Spirit by which it is effected. How simple! We behold and are changed —changed into the same image from glory to glory —for it is a gradual process —as by the Spirit of the Lord. We receive the impress of the One on whom we look; the rays of the glory of His face falling on us, penetrate into, and transform us morally into the likeness of our Lord.

Herein then lies our responsibility. The object is before us; before Him we stand with unveiled face, and it is Divine power alone that can mould us into His likeness; but the activity of that power —through the Spirit—God has been pleased to connect with our beholding. Who, then, would not ever stand with upturned face, catching every ray of the glory that falls from such an object, in the earnest desire to attain growing conformity to Him on whom we gaze? This is the secret of all growth in grace—uninterrupted contemplation of Christ on the Father's throne. But it should be remembered that it is only increasing likeness we attain even by such a process. Full conformity waits, as St. John teaches, for the moment when we shall see Him as He is. There is no perfection, therefore, here, since God's standard of holiness is Christ in glory, and He will never rest until we are perfect according to it. May we keep our eyes ever upon the object, that we may daily grow in resemblance to Him to whom we are to be conformed!

     "To see Thy glory, and to be
     In everything conformed to Thee."

(5.) Since He is God's object, He is also ours; for our fellowship is with the Father as well as with the Son (1 John i. 3). When He was down here on the earth, twice a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son." He was all God's delight, and God rested in Him with perfect complacency. Ere He left this scene He said, "There fore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again" (John x. 17). By the work which He accomplished on the -cross, glorifying God therein, even about the question of sin, and laying the foundation on which God could righteously save the believer, and reconcile all things to Him self (Col. i. 20), He established a new claim upon God. Hence He said, in anticipation of the cross, " Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him " (John xiii. 31, 32). And God has done it, and Christ, the glorified man, now sits at His right hand; for God rejoiced thus to respond to the claim which had thus been established upon Him, and (if we may reverently use the words) to mark thus His estimate of- the value of His work. There He sits, the object of God's heart as well as the centre of the glory, and God feasts upon the One who has retrieved His honour, glorified Him in every attribute of His character; and He invites us to participate with Him in His own joy. This is what we are called to—to share with God in His feelings and thoughts concerning His beloved Son. He is enough for the heart of God; and surely also enough for ours; and if He fills the eye of God, He may well absorb our gaze.

It is well for us to consider this aspect of the truth. It is not only that Christ is a Saviour suited to all our needs, but He is one who is suited to the heart of God—the Man after God's own heart; and God would have us prize Him according to His own thoughts of His value and preciousness, to enter into, and to rejoice with Him in, His appreciation of the worth of Him who gave up all for His glory. " Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. iii. 10, 11).

And as He is our object now, so He will be through out eternity. We shall be ever with the Lord. Him self will be with us—the Lamb that was once slain; then, as now, the Man—for He will nevermore lay aside the humanity He has assumed; and then He will fill our gaze, and our hearts, perfectly and completely. What an infinite study to trace out and contemplate His varied and manifold excellences! We shall see His face, and shall never weary of drinking in His beauty!

We shall hear His voice, and oh! how we shall hang upon every word that, falls from His lips! And all that we see, and hear, will but fill our souls with ineffable delight, and our ceaseless joy will be to prostrate ourselves at His feet in adoration and praise. Lord, in anticipation of this time, turn our eyes from all that might obscure Thee from our view, and Thyself attract and occupy us altogether!

"Thou art the everlasting Word,
     The Father's only Son;
God manifest, God seen and heard,
     The Heaven's beloved One;
Worthy, 0 Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

"In Thee most perfectly express'd
     The Father's self doth shine;
ulness of Godhead, too: the Blest, —
     Eternally divine.
Worthy, 0 Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

"Of the vast universe of bliss,
     The Centre Thou, and Sun:
Th' eternal theme of praise is this,
     To Heaven's beloved One:
Worthy, 0 Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow."

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