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Can you imagine, O child of God, any way by which the Father could have given us greater boldness of access, than by giving His only Son as a Lamb upon earth, with His godlike, gentle dis¬position, to win our hearts to Him? After Jesus had given Him¬self on the Cross, a ransom for our sins, God placed Him in the midst of the Throne, that we as sinners might have perfect boldness through His blood, to present our prayers through Him, in full assurance that He, as Intercessor, will make them acceptable to the Father.Truly the holy God has done His utmost to draw us to Himself, and to grant us heavenly boldness to pray with the assurance that our defective prayers, through the Lamb on the Throne, the sympathizing High Priest, will be heard, and find acceptance with God the Father.
O my brother, take time, with the vision of the Lamb on the Throne before you, to give you boldness—take time in deepest humility and childlike faith, and with all the love of which your heart is capable, to worship Him as your Surety and Intercessor and great High Priest. When the Holy Spirit has given that vision of the Lamb on the Throne unto your heart, it will indeed be a Throne of Grace, and you can do nothing less than fall prostrate before Him in adoration and praise, and give Him the glory to all eternity.
Your heart will then become a true temple of God, where, day by day, yea, hour by hour, the song will arise: "Salvation be unto our God who sitteth upon the Throne, and to the Lamb."
When our hearts are filled with love for the Lamb upon the Throne, who makes our prayers acceptable to God the Father, then we shall have the joy and the faith to expect a speedy answer.
Our unbelief is the greatest hindrance in our way; in fact, there is no other real difficulty as to our spiritual progress and prosperity. The LORD can do everything; but when He makes a rule that according to our faith so shall it be unto us, our unbelief ties the hands of His omnipotence.
God often DELAYS IN ANSWERING PRAYER . We have several instances of this in sacred Scripture. Jacob did not get the blessing from the angel until near the dawn of day—he had to wrestle all night for it. The poor woman of Syrophenicia was answered not a word for a long while. Paul besought the Lord thrice that “the thorn in the flesh” might be taken from him, and he received no assurance that it should be taken away, but instead thereof a promise that Gods grace should be sufficient for him. If thou hast been knocking at the gate of mercy, and hast received no answer, shall I tell thee why the mighty Maker hath not opened the door and let thee in? Our Father has reasons peculiar to himself for thus keeping us waiting. Sometimes it is to show his power and his sovereignty, that men may know that Jehovah has a right to give or to withhold. More frequently the delay is for our profit. Thou art perhaps kept waiting in order that thy desires may be more fervent. God knows that delay will quicken and increase desire, and that if he keeps thee waiting thou wilt see thy necessity more clearly, and wilt seek more earnestly; and that thou wilt prize the mercy all the more for its long tarrying. There may also be something wrong in thee which has need to be removed, before the joy of the Lord is given. Perhaps thy views of the Gospel plan are confused, or thou mayest be placing some little reliance on thyself, instead of trusting simply and entirely to the Lord Jesus. Or, God makes thee tarry awhile that he may the more fully display the riches of his grace to thee at last. Thy prayers are all filed in heaven, and if not immediately answered they are certainly not forgotten, but in a little while shall be fulfilled to thy delight and satisfaction. Let not despair make thee silent, but continue instant in earnest supplication.
Peace and rest belong not to the unregenerate, they are the peculiar possession of the Lords people, and of them only. The God of Peace gives perfect peace to those whose hearts are stayed upon him. When man was unfallen, his God gave him the flowery bowers of Eden as his quiet resting places; alas! how soon sin blighted the fair abode of innocence. In the day of universal wrath when the flood swept away a guilty race, the chosen family were quietly secured in the resting-place of the ark, which floated them from the old condemned world into the new earth of the rainbow and the covenant, herein typifying Jesus, the ark of our salvation. Israel rested safely beneath the blood-besprinkled habitations of Egypt when the destroying angel smote the first-born; and in the wilderness the shadow of the pillar of cloud, and the flowing rock, gave the weary pilgrims sweet repose. At this hour we rest in the promises of our faithful God, knowing that his words are full of truth and power; we rest in the doctrines of his word, which are consolation itself; we rest in the covenant of his grace, which is a haven of delight. More highly favoured are we than David in Adullam, or Jonah beneath his gourd, for none can invade or destroy our shelter. The person of Jesus is the quiet resting-place of his people, and when we draw near to him in the breaking of the bread, in the hearing of the word, the searching of the Scriptures, prayer, or praise, we find any form of approach to him to be the return of peace to our spirits.
"Is achieving for us," mark. The question is repeatedly asked--Why is the life of man drenched with so much blood, and blistered with so many tears? The answer is to be found in the word "achieving"; these things are achieving for us something precious. They are teaching us not only the way to victory, but better still the laws of victory. There is a compensation in every sorrow, and the sorrow is working out the compensation.
When we look at the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, we are looking at the first time of the Seed, bringing forth firstfruits. Receiving Christ as the Seed, we are compelled to plant ourselves in the likeness of His death. We have been baptised into His death. As the Seed goes into the ground to die, likewise we have been buried with Him in baptism, lest we abide alone. As He was buried and yet saw no corruption, we are buried with Him in the hope that the incorruptible Seed will multiply. We are raised with Him in the sheaf of firstfruits, in the likeness of His resurrection.
We know that all the promises of the covenant belong to one Seed therefore we must be planted in Him. Having been planted in Him, we are ‘found in Him’, in the hope of being raised with Him in His likeness. ‘Now Christ has been raised from the dead … Christ the firstfruits, and after that those who are Christ’s at His coming.’ Our hope is clear. He has been raised from the dead, the sheaf of the firstfruits, and the seed of our life is hidden in His sheaf. We are His fruit, certain firstfruits brought forth in the exercise of the Father’s will. According to the Father’s desire, there are many sons coming forth in Christ to glory. As the priests of old presented the wave offering, the sheaf of firstfruits, even so Christ is lifted up and we are in Him. We have been born again by the incorruptible seed.
When God the Son emptied to the bosom of the Father, He did not grasp equality with the Father and Holy Spirit as a co-equal and co-essential member of the Godhead. He committed His own glory to the Father’s keeping, and humbled Himself to an order of headship. Headship is the order by which the life of new creation proceeds. Hence, the apostle said, ‘God is the head of Christ’.
Having emptied to the bosom, He was begotten as the Father’s firstborn.
He was the beginning of the creation of God; the Seed of all new creation. He was ‘before all things’, but humbled Himself to a beginning so that a multitude could come forth. It is in the bosom of the Father that He was
begotten as the firstborn among many brethren. By the word of the oath,
He was begotten ‘immediately’. He did not glorify Himself, but the Father proclaimed, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You’. We recall the
words of Jesus concerning Himself, ‘If God is glorified in Him, God will
also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately’.
It is important to make a distinction between God the Son with His glory before and the Son of God with the ‘glory as of the only begotten from the Father’. As God the Son, He humbled Himself into an order of headship
from the Father. As the Seed of new creation, He was the first of everything
that would come forth in Him from the Father of spirits. In this begetting work of the Father within the order of headship, He gave to the Son all of the elements of a new and begotten spirit as His seed. And this seed would multiply as an innumerable multitude of individual identities.
Having considered our fallen condition and the redeeming sin offering of Jesus, Paul asked the rhetorical question. ‘What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?’ He answered, ‘May it never be! How shall we who died to sin, still live in it?’ If we don’t understand the trespass offering, right there is the great contradiction for every Christian. We believe that the blood of Jesus Christ is completely effective for the removal of sin, but at the same time, we know that we are still weak and liable to sin. We find ourselves in a discrepancy. We all offend in many ways. The person who does not offend is a perfect man. And so we find ourselves in the discrepancy between what Christ has done in His sin offering and our actual behaviour. One thing is clear. The sin offering is not simply a substitutionary provision. Without participation and fellowship in His offering, there is no effective offering for sin. We must participate in a process in the trespass offering. With respect to this crisis, we have heard statements like, ‘It is under the blood’, ‘He sees me as perfect’, ‘Just plead the blood’. These are the statements of those who appeal to a substitutionary offering. This kind of offering can never make the offerer perfect in his conscience. The Scripture is clear, if we go on sinning wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. If the blood of His sin offering is sufficient for the removal of sin, then we must understand how to be restored when we are caught in a trespass. But if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Jesus said, ‘If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself’. We are drawn to the light of Christ shining from the cross. When we walk in this light, we are drawn into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. If we will walk in the light, and join the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, His blood will cleanse our sin. Jesus was lifted up as an ensign, or standard, to which all men would gather. In this way, He would be given as the covenant of God to all nations. Zacharias the priest, the father of John the Baptist, prophesied that Christ would be like the light of the sunrise, a light from heaven ‘to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace’. Simeon, the man who was present at the circumcision of Jesus, said, ‘For my eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel’. The crucifixion was the manifestation of the salvation of God. The glory of the Lord shone upon us when Christ was lifted up. The light of eternal life was given to us. We were illuminated, and the covenant of our sonship was returned to us. We were born again when we believed in Christ. We became His disciples when we followed Him. We became sons of God when we were baptised into Christ and clothed ourselves with His sonship.
