There are two factors in the Old Testament picture of redemption (Ex 12:7, 8): there is the blood on the lentil—that is security, I admit; but what is the eating the roast lamb with the bitter herbs? You say, I believe in the Blood. I say, I do not question it a bit, but do you have the sense in your soul of how the Lord Jesus bore the judgment of your sins; do you have the sense of the consequences of sin? Weakness here hinders you from coming out of Egypt—the world (saved from sin but immature in Christ’s “image” - NC).
I am not only delivered from the judgment; I am going out of the place where the judgment was. Therefore the Scripture says, “Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water” (Exo 12:9). People speaking in a familiar way of the Lord Jesus Christ as “Jesus,” “dear Jesus,” and such like, is eating it raw. I do not touch the question of security, because the slightest faith in the savior brings security; but I say there is no depth in it, because they have not gone inside and eaten the lamb “roast with fire,” and “with bitter herbs”; they have no sense of what the Lord Jesus endured when He was made sin for us.
There is so little known of confession. “With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” That is not merely going out and telling people; the meaning of confession is the heart having a sense of what it has found in another, so as to be constrained to acknowledge it. The woman coming into the Pharisee’s house was for confession. She heard of Him and believed in Him before, but she says, I must go and speak to Him; I must give up all for Him. And she comes in, and stands behind Him weeping, and anoints Him. That was confession; with the mouth owning Him. So did Jonathan. He first made a covenant with David, and then he “stripped himself of the robe that was on him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.” That was confession.
There has been a good deal said about being personally occupied with the Lord Jesus, but you will not be occupied with the Deliverer until you know deliverance. How could Jonathan be occupied with David the deliverer before he saw the head of Goliath in his hand, and he knew that deliverance was wrought? Then David was his object.
The Lord Jesus has removed every single thing out of the way; there is now nothing to bar your access to the Father. He has removed sin, and the darkness of divine wrath against sin. But there must be faith in the facts. You cannot get into Psalm 23 until you have learned the Lord of Psalm 22. How can you lie down in green pastures unless you see first that He has removed everything out of the way which could come in and disturb you there? Praise comes out, confession is as I look at the One who is triumphant. “The Lord hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea (Exodus 15:1).
I hear people say Christ has paid all their debts. Yes, all that you know; but what about what you do not know? Your conscience is clear, but I know where you will be presently; you will be in misery; you will find that it is not only what you know, but that sin is working in you; you will be in Romans seven!
What are you to do? Look to the One who satisfied Him. The Father never imputes sin to you anymore. He has raised His Son from the dead to prove it. He never again sees you “in the flesh” (Ro 8:9), though He sees you acting in it. But all the question of sin is settled, and now it can never come between you and your Father. If you call in question your acceptance you are simply misunderstanding the Lord Jesus Christ.
— James Butler Stoney (1814-1897)
[Note for Romans 7: “The exclamation of Paul through the entirety of Romans 7 describes the life of those reborn. He no longer desires to sin but does because now it’s from his “old man” and not him in his “new man” - Ro 7:17, 20. This is the crux of Ro 8:9—we no longer take part after the sin nature] -NC
MJS daily devotional excerpt for August 25
Christians have a poor self-image simply because they are thinking and looking upon the condemned and crucified first-Adam life within, instead of being occupied with their glorified Last-Adam life above. “Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18).
“‘If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’ (2 Cor. 5:17). Does this not mean a new sort of creature, as the Word implies? Do we go back to Adam, the innocent man in the garden in which God set him to dress and keep? No, that would be no creature new in kind. Adam even, pure and good before his fall, was yet of the earth, earthy.
“Is the Lord Jesus but the first man set up afresh? No, He is ‘the second man, the Lord from heaven.’ He is a heavenly man, the Last Adam—head of a new race; beginning of a new creation—and you and I who believe are ‘in Him,’ seen and accepted before the Father ‘in His Beloved.’ The full image of Him we have not yet: true. That will be ours in the day of His coming. The thing we are!” - Frederick William Grant (1834-1902)
“A sinner in himself, the believer has, by faith, taken upon him the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is ‘in Him,’ he has been made the righteousness of God in Him. He is ‘accepted in the Beloved’ (Eph. 1:6). Faith alone gives him all this comeliness. He has been recreated in the Lord Jesus. This is the beauty of the believer; and he is lovely in the eye of the Lord Jesus. ‘So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty; for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him’ (Ps. 45:11).” -J.C.B.
I am not only delivered from the judgment; I am going out of the place where the judgment was. Therefore the Scripture says, “Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water” (Exo 12:9). People speaking in a familiar way of the Lord Jesus Christ as “Jesus,” “dear Jesus,” and such like, is eating it raw. I do not touch the question of security, because the slightest faith in the savior brings security; but I say there is no depth in it, because they have not gone inside and eaten the lamb “roast with fire,” and “with bitter herbs”; they have no sense of what the Lord Jesus endured when He was made sin for us.
There is so little known of confession. “With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” That is not merely going out and telling people; the meaning of confession is the heart having a sense of what it has found in another, so as to be constrained to acknowledge it. The woman coming into the Pharisee’s house was for confession. She heard of Him and believed in Him before, but she says, I must go and speak to Him; I must give up all for Him. And she comes in, and stands behind Him weeping, and anoints Him. That was confession; with the mouth owning Him. So did Jonathan. He first made a covenant with David, and then he “stripped himself of the robe that was on him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.” That was confession.
There has been a good deal said about being personally occupied with the Lord Jesus, but you will not be occupied with the Deliverer until you know deliverance. How could Jonathan be occupied with David the deliverer before he saw the head of Goliath in his hand, and he knew that deliverance was wrought? Then David was his object.
The Lord Jesus has removed every single thing out of the way; there is now nothing to bar your access to the Father. He has removed sin, and the darkness of divine wrath against sin. But there must be faith in the facts. You cannot get into Psalm 23 until you have learned the Lord of Psalm 22. How can you lie down in green pastures unless you see first that He has removed everything out of the way which could come in and disturb you there? Praise comes out, confession is as I look at the One who is triumphant. “The Lord hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea (Exodus 15:1).
I hear people say Christ has paid all their debts. Yes, all that you know; but what about what you do not know? Your conscience is clear, but I know where you will be presently; you will be in misery; you will find that it is not only what you know, but that sin is working in you; you will be in Romans seven!
What are you to do? Look to the One who satisfied Him. The Father never imputes sin to you anymore. He has raised His Son from the dead to prove it. He never again sees you “in the flesh” (Ro 8:9), though He sees you acting in it. But all the question of sin is settled, and now it can never come between you and your Father. If you call in question your acceptance you are simply misunderstanding the Lord Jesus Christ.
— James Butler Stoney (1814-1897)
[Note for Romans 7: “The exclamation of Paul through the entirety of Romans 7 describes the life of those reborn. He no longer desires to sin but does because now it’s from his “old man” and not him in his “new man” - Ro 7:17, 20. This is the crux of Ro 8:9—we no longer take part after the sin nature] -NC
MJS daily devotional excerpt for August 25
Christians have a poor self-image simply because they are thinking and looking upon the condemned and crucified first-Adam life within, instead of being occupied with their glorified Last-Adam life above. “Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18).
“‘If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’ (2 Cor. 5:17). Does this not mean a new sort of creature, as the Word implies? Do we go back to Adam, the innocent man in the garden in which God set him to dress and keep? No, that would be no creature new in kind. Adam even, pure and good before his fall, was yet of the earth, earthy.
“Is the Lord Jesus but the first man set up afresh? No, He is ‘the second man, the Lord from heaven.’ He is a heavenly man, the Last Adam—head of a new race; beginning of a new creation—and you and I who believe are ‘in Him,’ seen and accepted before the Father ‘in His Beloved.’ The full image of Him we have not yet: true. That will be ours in the day of His coming. The thing we are!” - Frederick William Grant (1834-1902)
“A sinner in himself, the believer has, by faith, taken upon him the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is ‘in Him,’ he has been made the righteousness of God in Him. He is ‘accepted in the Beloved’ (Eph. 1:6). Faith alone gives him all this comeliness. He has been recreated in the Lord Jesus. This is the beauty of the believer; and he is lovely in the eye of the Lord Jesus. ‘So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty; for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him’ (Ps. 45:11).” -J.C.B.
