"That ye may know what is the hope of His calling." God has called you; what is the hope of the calling? What future is there in this call? We get it in verse 5 -- "Having been predestinated unto the adoption of children." I know "Abba's" heart now; I am to know "Abba's" house then. If God says, "How beautiful my house will be with my Son in it, surrounded by those associated with Him," is it nothing to my heart that God already has joy in the thought? It will have a separating effect on the soul from evil to God. "And what the riches of the glory," etc.? Glory is not the same as the Father's house. There is rest in the thought of the house, whereas in the glory we get the public expression of it. What a contrast to this beggarly world down here! Here it is all toil; but what is it all leading to? To a bright, brilliant, glorious future, now made little of by people here; then made much of by God up there. So far there is no question of life; He takes them as it were and shows them the corpse they were, the pit they were in. God loves to be Centre, to have round Him a circumference of blessing. What was the pit you came from? What good was there in it? God could find none; so you cannot. Everything in it is bad, though it need not come out. As the pit was down there, and nothing but evil working in it, so the blessing came from quite a different place -- from the Man up there upon the throne. Had we taken a few steps towards Him? No! it is even when we were "dead in sins." It is not a question of bad fruits -- "dead in sins" (not alive in sins, as in Romans), all entirely wrong, all dead; not a correct notion of God, nor of Christ, nor the Holy Ghost, nor of ourselves.
There are three things: life-giving, separation from the grave, and a place of permanent rest. Satan cannot rob me of blessing, because I am within Christ. The bringing into a place of blessing is a thing to be known individually; knowing it, and knowing the existence of it, are very different things. You say you believe it. Have you got it yourself? Can you say, "I have gone up from the tomb by a power that associates me with all that is dear to God? God looks on me, and says, 'There is an individual who has life together with my Son.'" Can you say it? Is the life that you live in the flesh by faith of the Son of God?
God promised a son to Abraham; his circumstances said, "Impossible, you cannot have any children." But Abraham said, "Let God alone, He must see to His promise." Difficulties to believers now come in exactly the same way. Things inconsistent are brought up by conscience: if you say, "That is inconsistent with the Man up there, I am ashamed of myself," you judge it in faith; but if you say, "I have failed, I am no Christian," you play into Satan's hands; you do not judge yourself, but slur over the evil. We get here three things -
Abba's heart, Abba's house, and that the Man, the perfect Servant of God, who was obedient even unto death, has won His place up there. He went in not only as One who had a right to go in, but because He had humbled Himself. These things just mark the place that you and I are in as Christians. God wanted to show what a God He was, and the resources He had in His Son.
If God has raised us up together, etc., it is that we may have communion with Himself through this Christ dwelling in us by faith. We cannot get steadiness of works, unless with a soul abiding in communion with God. If I am in communion with God, what do I get? If a heart be right with God, there is talking about Christ always -- Christ at home in the heart. I look up and say, "There is a Man on the throne of God, and He has all power in His hand: the Son of the virgin, the seed of the woman; and God says, "That is my beloved Son, the fulness of Godhead." If you know Him, you may get all the fulness of God. I never shall know Him; but I know Himself. God presents in that Man, seen there by faith, what can fill the humblest mind.
God has formed in my soul such an estimate of Christ that I could not do without Him; and more than that, He cannot do without me. Nothing is good without Christ, and the presence of Christ in anything makes it a home-scene to the heart.
The valley of Baca is a precious place if Christ be there. Oh, what a height and depth in the truth that makes us one with Him! What an expression of love! What an expression of light! G. V. W.
