As we
move on in these meditations, there are two other
passages of the Word of a basic character which I want to
bring to you. One is in I Pet. 3:20-21.
"...
once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah,
while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is,
eight souls were saved by water. The like figure
whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the
putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of
a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ."
Without
taking it away from its context, which is vital to our
present consideration, I want just to underline the last
part of that passage: "the answer of a good
conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ".
Then we
will turn back to most familiar words in Romans 6:3-8.
"Know
ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are
buried with him by baptism into death: that like as
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of
his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his
resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified
with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that
henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead
is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we
believe that we shall also live with him."
The Basis of a Good Conscience
We now
pass to the third of the characters used by God to
explain the working of the law of life, namely, Noah. We
have seen that not one of these can be taken as detached
or unrelated or separate from any other or from the rest.
They all overlap, grow into one another and grow out of
one another. We find ourselves really in a chain, a chain
of seven links; and the links in the chain of the course
of death are clearly seen as you take up this book.
"The eyes of them both were opened" (Gen. 3:7);
that is the first link in the chain. The second link is
this: "And Cain went out from the presence of the
Lord" (Gen. 4:16). The third link quickly follows:
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in
the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually... And God said unto
Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the
earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold,
I will destroy them with the earth" (Gen. 6:5,13).
Now you see in that seventh verse of chapter 3 exactly
what has happened. It is said that the eyes of them both
were opened. It means that conscience came into being,
and an evil conscience at that. Up to that time,
conscience had not been the ruling faculty. Perhaps they
had been altogether unconscious of having a conscience,
but now conscience has come to life, and because it is an
evil conscience they acted as they did and hid
themselves. That has come in with Adam, and what we have
to see is that the mischief that came in with Adam has to
be remedied; there has to be deliverance from an evil
conscience and the answer of a good conscience toward
God.
The Adam
race in itself is entirely unable to give that answer of
a good conscience. No matter how conscience works in the
natural man, it always betrays condemnation; for in the
natural man conscience usually works either to accuse or
excuse, and both alike represent condemnation. Conscience
being evil, and man being unable to give the answer of a
good conscience toward God, means that, so far as God is
concerned, man is dead, dead to God. The answer of a good
conscience toward God demands that we should be on living
ground, a ground of life, altogether other ground than
that of nature: so in I Pet. 3:21, it is the answer of a
good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Now, it is to this that Noah brings us. Here we
have the question of life bound up with the answer of a
good conscience toward God by resurrection; for life and
a good conscience go together, or a good conscience
toward God and life go together. In like manner,
an evil conscience and death go together.
Just
look back one step in our meditation to Abel. There in
Abel the matter is related to the death side of the
Cross. As we contemplated Abel and his sacrifice, we saw
that Abel's discernment and conclusion was that, rather
than being able to bring anything as the fruit of nature
for God's satisfaction subsequent to Adam's disobedience,
the only way of life is through death: the creature must
die, the soul must be poured out unto death, not bring
its works, its fruits, its good, as did Cain. So Abel
represents the death side of the Cross, where the soul is
poured out unto death.
Now,
while we look out upon a state of universal death as we
come to Noah and death is very much in view, nevertheless
it is the positive side that governs in Noah's case. It
is very important that we should recognize that. It is
not the death side which is supreme in the case of Noah,
despite a universal overwhelming. It is the life side
that governs in Noah's case, the positive side.
Let us
mark again what Peter says.
"The
longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while
the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight
souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even
baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of
the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good
conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ."
That is
the positive side, you see; the life side. All this
brings something into view, namely, resurrection, life;
and resurrection, life, is only possible when there has
been a repudiation of the natural or soul-life of the old
Adam. That is one side of Noah's testimony. God always
finally acts on the positive line. While He says terrible
things - "The end of all flesh is come before me...
I will destroy them with the earth" - God never
intended that should be the end. God is acting on the
positive line. He will re-act to secure something that
does answer to His original thought. He is not abandoning
His thought and saying, I can never do as I intended; man
has rendered it impossible for me to accomplish what I
had set my heart upon: I am defeated, I am in a hopeless
state, I will wipe it all out and try again. It is never
thus with God. And to whatever He has to resort to clear
the ground, He is but clearing ground for something else;
He is acting and re-acting with the positive always in
view. Otherwise God is defeated again and again and
again. He is as a hopeless, helpless God making futile
attempts through history, and the greatest failure that
this universe has ever seen was the death of Jesus
Christ! But we know that the death of the Lord Jesus was
the greatest triumph of God that this universe has ever
seen. It has cleared the ground for a new creation. God
is always acting on the positive line. But you can never
come to the positive, you can never come to the life,
until there has been the repudiation of that which God
has repudiated, and God has repudiated the natural life,
the soul-life of man as the governing thing. Why is that?
Well, as we have seen before, it is because, since Adam's
transgression and fall, the natural or soul-life of man
is a false life. This is made very manifest in Cain.
The Natural Soul-life a False Life
We must
re-emphasize here something that was said in our previous
meditation. You have in Cain a very religious man; a man
who, along his line, is a very devout man, recognizing
and acknowledging God as the object of worship. As he
looked over the result of his labours in those fruits of
the field and of the trees, he probably picked out the
best, he selected the most perfect, he made up a
sacrifice that answered to his highest judgment as to
what was worthy of God. We will do him credit for that,
and I think it is most likely that is exactly what he did
do. He brought the best he could lay hand upon, and
sought to worship God by that means, and sought life
along that line. But, you see, his soul was darkened, and
that action of the soul, that energy, that motion, that
life of the soul, that natural life, was a false life. It
misled him, it deceived him, it caused him to proceed in
a way which brought him up against a blank wall where God
was concerned, with no opening, no way through. It was
the leading of a false, deceived life, and that is so
with this natural life of ours. It is a false life, it is
a deceived life, and it deceives us even in worship. We
may become almost ecstatic in worship, we may become
tremendously emotional in worship; there may be something
that looks like veritable agony in worship, and I have
seen it. I have entered cathedrals and churches in
Southern Europe and the Mediterranean at the feast of
Corpus Christi and at other times, and I have seen people
spread on the ground in what looked like an agony, when
the host was elevated, groaning and almost perspiring.
Half an hour afterwards out in the street, they were
using knives to one another in a quarrel. You see, it is
a false life, a deceived life. That, of course, is an
extreme expression of it, but you can see the same thing
in more modified forms. Sincerity is not necessarily
reality: we have to discriminate. We may mean well: so
did Cain; but he murdered. This life of ours is a
deceived life and it will deceive us even in worshipping,
and get us nowhere.
Even in
what we call service to God, it may be our own zest, our
own zeal, our own enthusiasm, our own energy, putting
ourselves into it, and not that energy and vitality of
the Spirit of God by which alone God is served. Now, I am
not saying that, when the Holy Spirit gets hold of us, we
do not put ourselves into things, but I modify that word
"ourselves". It is true that, if the Holy Ghost
gets hold of us, He will use us up. The Lord requires
that, whatsoever our hands find to do, we should do it
with our might. The Lord demands that we shall serve Him
with all our strength, all our mind, all our heart. Yes,
but the Holy Spirit must be in charge to direct, to
instigate, to govern, or all is in vain, and we are
deceived in trying to serve the Lord and it comes to
nothing. The question is, Where is the spring of this -
in ourselves, or in Him? Is it of God or simply our own
judgment as to what is for God? Now, this is where
understanding needs enlightenment, and where things have
to be put into their right place. This natural life does
not get through to God, and therefore can never lead to
spiritual maturity. Strange, is it not, that some of
those who are most energetically engaged and thoroughly
using their energies in work for God still remain so
spiritually small in their knowledge of God? This soul of
ours never will get us through to spiritual maturity, to
a real and true knowledge of God: and that is the test of
everything - growth in the knowledge of the Lord. It is
not a question at the last of how much I have done, how
sincere or earnest I have been: the thing which matters
in the long run is, In what measure do I know the Lord,
how much have I grown in the knowledge of the Lord, how
has my spiritual intelligence increased? That is the
thing that matters; and that is a matter of life, Divine
life.
The
flood was the verdict upon the course of Cain. The second
link in the chain is, as we have said, "And Cain
went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the
land of Nod." Then what happened? He instituted a
civilization. You mark what is there recorded. You find
cities, trades, arts, industries, all coming out from
Cain, all the various aspects of human life. Cain built a
civilization, produced a world after his own kind; a
natural life, soul-life, soul-world; that which was not
out from God but out from himself, and the flood was
God's verdict upon the course of Cain, that world of
natural glory, of man's fruitfulness apart from God. So
the law of life is seen operating, not along that line -
that is the way of death - but along another line,
through the flood and out on the other side upon
resurrection ground.
The Importance of a True and Settled
Position
Now, if
we at any time leave the ground of resurrection, which
pre-supposes the repudiation of our natural life, then
life is at once arrested and death takes advantage. We
have to settle it once for all that we have done with
nature and nature's ground as the ground of our hope, our
confidence, our reliance, our expectation. Yet how long
drawn out is that awful conflict with our own natures to
get that issue! Have we any expectation whatsoever in
nature? Of course, as one familiar with the doctrine, you
will say, No, certainly not! we see that it is
unfruitful, unprofitable, and we can have no expectation
there. Then why be miserable because you cannot find any
good in yourself? It means that you are expecting
something from yourself. Take that ground and you take
the ground of death. If you take the ground of
resurrection, it implies that you have once for all given
up all expectation of any good coming out of yourself.
Oh, to get that settled, and settled with reference to
the Devil; because, you see, this not only constitutes
for us an outstanding point of conflict, but it is also
Satan's ground. Every link in this chain, every aspect of
the working of this law of life, is a reversing of the
work of Satan. If he brought out the soul into a false
place of domination, then the soul has to be poured out
that his ground may be taken away.
You have
heard of the farmer who was always having trouble with
his spiritual life because Satan was always coming to him
and telling him that he was not forgiven and not a true
believer in Christ, that he was not truly saved. Almost
every day he went down under that accusation until life
became intolerable. One day, unable to go on any longer
because of this accusation and the misery of getting down
under it, he sat down and faced the thing out. He put
some questions to himself with the Word of God before him.
He said, Have I accepted that? Do I believe that? Of
course I do with all my heart. Then God says that I am
forgiven. God says "there is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." So
he went out into the field where Satan had met him so
often and took a stake, and drove it deep into the earth,
and said, That settles it once for all! Then he went on
with his ploughing. He got to the other side and Satan
came back and tried to tempt him again. Look here, Mr.
Satan, he said, you come along with me. You see that
stake? You know why I drove that stake in there: I drove
it in to settle this business once for all. God has said
it and I believe and accept it. That is an end of it!
Do not
parley with Satan. Point to an established fact and stay
there. Keep to your fact. If you move off resurrection
ground and what it implies, it is death. Stay there, with
its implication that you have repudiated the life of
nature as having any possible hope, and you have seen
Christ as the hope, the sure hope, the only hope.
Maintain that position, and the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus makes free from the law of sin and death.
That is how the law of life operates, on resurrection
ground. There is no good conscience on any other ground,
as that farmer well discovered when he moved over on to
Satan's side and accepted what he had to say.
Noah
forever stands to testify against the vanity, the
emptiness, the unfruitfulness of a natural life, and his
is a practical testimony. He testified to the vanity of
natural life by building an ark in order to get out of
it. That, for Noah, was the way of life - out of the life
of nature. The law of life in Christ Jesus supposes that,
in spirit, we are out of nature: otherwise that law is
not a law for us; it has no meaning for us, it does not
operate where we are concerned. It supposes that we are
out of the life of nature and in Christ Jesus.
Noah a Witness against a Lost
Discrimination
Now, to
examine Noah a little more closely. One of the pronounced
features in Noah's day was the loss of distinctiveness
between things clean and things unclean. There is that
mysterious statement in Genesis 6:2: "The sons of
God saw the daughters of men... and took them wives of
all which they chose." The last clause is very
suggestive - "as THEY chose". Refraining
deliberately from going into explanations of the first
part of the statement, let us take what lies on the
surface. Here are those who are on God's line. We will
just leave it at that. There are those who are on God's
line and those who are not on God's line, the sons of God
and the daughters of men, and there is an inter-mixture,
a loss of distinction, a loss of discrimination between
what is of God and what is not of God, and a bringing of
those two things together and making them one. That is
the meaning of marriage. But what was it that led to
that? "As they chose." You see, here you have
the soul in action, desiring and choosing, without a
perception of what is of God and what is not of God. You
see the principle. Will you just isolate that little bit,
and hold it and think about it? The soul in action;
desiring, that is the soul on its emotional side;
choosing, that is the soul on its volitional side;
desiring and choosing without discrimination as to what
is of God and what is not of God. That is exactly the
manner of the natural life, exactly what is exemplified
in Cain. The life of nature mixes things up and has no
power to perceive or discern what is of God and what is
not of God: it brings the two together. That today is the
tragedy of Christianity, the tragedy of what is called
"the Church", the tragedy of the work of the
Lord. There things have become all mixed up. That which
is of God has been brought under the hand of man, and man
is putting himself into the things of God. All this is
the mixture of soul with the things of God.
Now,
that was a pronounced feature of things in Noah's day,
and if there is one thing which is abhorrent to God, it
is mixture. God has shown Himself in His Word to be
opposed to mixture. With God, there is light and there is
darkness, there is death and there is life. When God
reaches His end, the river of the water of life is
crystal clear, and no murkiness is to be seen. The new
Jerusalem, the Holy City, is as clear as jasper,
transparent. All this is after God. "God is light
and in Him there is no darkness at all." God is
utter and God hates confusion. He is not the God of
confusion, He cannot bear mixture. God is always saying
in effect, One thing or the other! "Because thou
art... neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my
mouth" (Rev. 3:16). God is nauseated by mixture, and
that is what obtained there, natural life mixing up with
Divine things. That brings the Deluge, judgment, that is
the way of death. The law of the Spirit of life demands
utterness or it cannot operate. Life moves along the line
of what is absolutely distinct, unmistakable, clear, as
of God. It cannot countenance mixture.
You see
here, the deception of this life brought about the
judgment of God. What is deception? Well, it works in
many ways; but, so far as the soul is concerned, it can
work in this way, that it is a determined adherence to
one's own opinions on any subject, which means we are
unwilling to subject those opinions to any court but the
court of our own judgment. The thing begins with us and
it ends with us. It is tied up with ourselves and we are
not prepared to have any other judgment on the matter.
You may take it that, if anybody is like that, they are
most deceived.
Noah's Testimony Essentially Implies
Resurrection
Now, we
must close. There are two things to be noted about Noah.
It says that he was a just man and that he walked with
God. Well, as a just man, he took up what was true of
Abel. Abel had witness borne concerning himself that he
was righteous; and, walking with God, he took up what was
true of Enoch: Enoch walked with God. Both of these
things carry you at once on to resurrection ground and
show what Noah stands for. If, as is said, he is a just
man, whence is his righteousness? Why, only on the ground
of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We are justified
by His life, that is, His resurrection life. The
resurrection of Jesus Christ is God's own act of
attestation that all sin and guilt has been dealt with
and put away, and that is the ground on which we are
justified. It is through His righteousness, a
righteousness given us of God. That is life, walking with
God. Who can walk with God? No one can walk with God who
is not on resurrection ground, who is not righteous
before God in that sense.
So we
might go on increasing this emphasis in many ways, that
what Noah stands for is the positive side, resurrection,
and that the law of the Spirit of life operates on
resurrection ground. That means that all other ground of
natural life has been left and in Christ we have come
out. You see, Noah was all those years occupied with that
which spoke of being outside of things here; for Noah was
building that ark all through those years. He was every
day hammering home this fact: I am not in this, I am
going out, I am repudiating this! The hour is coming when
what is true of me spiritually will take place literally.
That is also our position. We too are out spiritually,
and we await the hour when what is true of us spiritually
will become literally true; we shall go out. But Christ
is out, and resurrection life means that we are out of
what is here; out of nature, and out of this world, and
out of ourselves. Noah with his ark ever bears that
testimony - out, always out.
But,
even so, it required a lot of patience to be spiritually
out and yet to be environed by all that state of things,
pestered by it, worried by it, pressed by the life of
nature. "In your patience ye shall win your
souls." That is the way of life.
Let me
emphasize again that this means to be on resurrection
ground. That is why we read Romans 6:3-8. It is
"out" through death. Link Romans 6 with I Pet.
3:21 - Through water saved on to resurrection ground:
planted in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in
the likeness of his resurrection. Eight souls (eight, the
resurrection number) were saved through water: "the
like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save
us... the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ." It is quite possible
for everyone of us to have a perfectly good conscience. A
happy state to be in! Have you a good conscience? Are you
under accusation, under condemnation? Are you fretting
and worrying about the badness of your own heart? That
means that you have not the answer of a good conscience
to God. What is the matter? You are still looking for
something from nature, from yourself. You had better give
it up, as that is the only way out; repudiate it. Tell
yourself and tell the Devil once for all that in you,
that is, in your flesh, dwelleth no good thing, and you
never expect to find anything. The Devil knows it, and
yet he is trying to get you on an impossible quest for
something he knows you will never find, and that is how
he worries you. Then why not come on to the Lord's ground
and out-manoeuvre him? Drive in your stake. Let us settle
it that we can never expect to find any good in
ourselves. All our good is in another, even our Lord
Jesus. It is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus. The Lord explain all that this means.