by Rev Donald MacLean
(Closing of the Question, at the Fellowship Meeting at St Jude’s, in November 1993.)
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God. . . .” 2 Cor 5: 17.
We have heard the marks, already, with regard to this work of God in the soul of man. Now being the work of God, it is, of course, in every respect of the term, worthy of God Himself. In connection with that new creation, we are told here plainly that ‘all things are of God’ — that all things of the new creation are of God.
Then, also, we must remember that this new creation takes place as a fruit of the death of the divine Redeemer — as a fruit of the death which is referred to here, when Christ bore the sins of His own people in His own body upon the tree, and atoned for these sins in His sacrifice on the tree of Calvary. There would be no new creation in the soul of any sinner of mankind apart from that work having been finished by the Saviour, when He cried on the cross, ‘It is finished’. It is because that work was finished, that this great event takes place in the spiritual experience of poor sinners in this world.
Now, this being the work of God, it is, as I have said already, a work altogether worthy of Him. And as we have been hearing, this new creation is bound up with the union of a soul to Christ. For, ‘If any man be in Christ’, that is, if any man be united to Christ, he is a new creation. Now, it is clear and unmistakable, that no-one can be united to Christ, who does not know Him. There can be no spiritual union to Christ without a spiritual knowledge of Him. That is something bound up with the new creation, for there can be no spiritual knowledge of Christ without spiritual light. We have heard reference made to the old creation, the creation of the world — that God commanded light to shine out of darkness. In that creation, that took place: and it is equally certain, in the new creation, that that must and does take place.
Now, by spiritual light we are to understand the light of which the Spirit of God is the author. It is not the light of human teaching. It is not the light of human wisdom. It is that light to which the Saviour referred when He spoke to Simon Peter with regard to the new creation in his soul. He said this to him: ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven’. The Father reveals Christ to the soul through God the Holy Spirit; and this takes place in connection with God commanding light to shine in a dark soul — a soul that is destitute of all spiritual knowledge; a soul that is destitute of all spiritual light.
How many — and we believe they are here, under the sound of the gospel, under the sound of the teaching of God’s word — have occasions when sparks of light enter their consciences, when they are concerned for a while about their sins or of one particular sin for which they have been rebuked, and of which they were guilty? But while that may continue for a time, and while there may be a change, or reformation, in the character of such persons for a time, yet, because that light is not spiritual light, but sparks of their own kindling, the light disappears, the darkness reappears, and they, however great their concern of soul may have been, are never united to Christ.
But this is a different thing: God commanding light to shine out of darkness. And when He does do so, spiritual light begins to come into the soul by God’s command, and it is through the Word of God. We are told that plainly, ‘The entrance of thy words giveth light’. These words explain first of all what takes place and how it is that spiritual light begins to arise in the soul. It is through the opening of the Word of God to his or her soul that a sinner gets a view that God is, that they have sinned against God, because they come to know in some measure the spirituality of the law of God. That is missing, to a great extent, in our day and generation, because there is so little spiritual light. You cannot have spiritual light in your soul without having a knowledge, conveyed to your soul, of the spirituality, the holiness, the goodness, of the law of God. That is what took place with regard to Paul — Saul of Tarsus — walking in sparks of his own kindling, imagining all was well, sure that he would be in paradise with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. But when the light, which is above the light of the sun, shone into his soul, he saw the spirituality, the holiness, of the law of God, and his sins in the light of that, and he came to experience, what he tells us, in his soul: ‘Sin revived’. Another resurrection rose up before his conscience, rose up before his soul, became a burden to him.
So, with regard to this new creation, there is a spiritual knowledge of the evil of sin, of the bitterness of sin; a spiritual knowledge of the condemnation due to sin. And the soul will be taught by the Holy Spirit to take the side of the law of God against himself, saying, as we have been hearing already since we came here: ‘that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest’.
Then, on the other hand, the gospel — it will not do just to have a head-knowledge of the gospel — we must have a spiritual knowledge of the gospel if we are to come to a proper knowledge of Christ. And so the Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and begins to open up, to the soul, Christ. Just as the Saviour Himself, when the two were on their way to Emmaus, began to open up to them the scriptures. And who was He setting forth in the scriptures? — this glorious Person, ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?’ Now, they were obtaining spiritual light as He was opening this up to their souls. So the Holy Spirit does this now. That does not mean to say that it is all done under one sermon. It may be line upon line, and precept upon precept.
It may be a sermon here, a sermon there; it may be even hearing a prayer and getting light on Christ in the prayer of one of the brethren — and we know of one person of whom that was true. It may be reading a sermon; or it may be alone with your Bible in your bedroom, and the Holy Spirit giving you light upon Christ in the everlasting gospel — the person of Christ, the work of Christ, the merit of the blood of Christ. And something else, that is, the soul getting a view of the love of Christ. That is what caused the two on the way to Emmaus to say: ‘Did not our heart burn within us. . . .’ Burn within us; warm, warm with the love of Christ, warm with the love of the One who died and rose again, and is now entered into everlasting glory. The soul, coming to see this, has a drawing to Christ, a drawing to a Christ who is known by the soul.
The Greeks, when they were coming up to the feast, they felt a drawing to Christ — of course they did. Oh, you may say, Murray M’Cheyne does not believe that that was a spiritual desire, but just a curious desire. Well, all good divines make blunders, and that is one of them, because of this, namely, that as soon as the Saviour heard of this desire, His mind went immediately to His sufferings unto death, and He saw there that that desire in the soul, ‘Sir, we would see Jesus’, was a fruit of His death. And that is what He said later on: ‘And, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me’. Now, this drawing is the drawing of a soul to Christ; spiritual light, spiritual understanding of who He is, and what He did; and that it was done for sinners; but for sinners with nothing to pay. We are very fond of these words of the Saviour (we all ought to be fond of them if we understood what we really were) ‘And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both’, so that bankrupt, with nothing to pay, they were drawn to be united to Christ by faith.
That was the beginning of the new creation; old things passed away, condemnation passed away, because, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus’. And there was now in their soul a bundle of spiritual desires, there was now in their soul a love to something they had never even thought of in a state of nature, that is, love to spiritual light, and that is what we read of: ‘if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’
Ask David, when he is cast down, when he is having doubts and fears, ‘What will you do now, David?’ ‘What I will do is this, something I never did before the new creation took place in my soul; I’ll pray ‘O send thy light forth and thy truth; let them be guides to me.’ There is a love to light, a love to spiritual light; that is what the people of God delight in. That is the great change in this new creation. As we said already: ‘God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts . . .’ There is this new light; and in this new light is new knowledge of Christ, and it is the beginning of light that is to shine more and more unto the perfect day. In this world there are but glimmers of the glory of Christ, the love of Christ, the sufficiency and the fulness of Christ; but it is light that is growing more and more unto the perfect day.
As some of you may know, when Dr Owen finished his work on “The Glory of Christ”, he was on his death-bed when word was brought to him that the book had gone through the press, and was now ready to be published and sent abroad. To the man that brought him that news, “Oh”, he said, “I am on my way to behold the glory of Christ in a way I never saw in this world”. That is the light that is in the new creation, growing more and more unto the perfect day, when they will “see the King in His beauty”, in ‘the land that is very far off’.
Surely, if we have some of these rays of light in our souls, making Christ precious to us, surely then we should obey what He says to His people, ‘This do in remembrance of me’.