SALVATION, as seen in God's dealings with the
Circumcision, differs radically from that which graces us who believe in
the present secret administration. What is needed is an intelligent grasp
of the underlying purpose of each, so that we cannot help keeping them
distinct. This alone will enable us to enjoy the transcendent grace which
is ours in Christ Jesus. Then we will never adulterate it with the greatly
inferior ingredients which characterize the evangel of the Circumcision,
as is almost universally done in Christendom today. We have already set
forth the evangel for today at some length, in The Mystery of the Gospel
and other works. Now we will explore still deeper, and also consider the
evangel of the Circumcision in order to form a foil, to create a contrast,
so that our hearts may grasp the transcendently transcendent grace which
we enjoy in Christ Jesus. At the same time we will seek to understand why
there are two evangels, and why one is concerned with faith and grace and
the other with works and reward.
Let him be anathema (Gal.1:8,9)! How solemn are
these words! We usually ignore them with the thought that they cannot
possibly apply to us. Yet the appalling fact is that, with few exceptions,
the beloved saints of God both believe and preach a different evangel,
which is not another, and do not even realize it. Unlike the Galatians,
they have not been transferred swiftly, but very slowly, away from the
grace of Christ. Indeed, the most of them have not changed, for they have
never known it. Alas! A few who once seemed to enjoy His grace have
suddenly turned from it, as did the Galatians. May God make His grace
abound in their behalf!
How terrible it seems, when we look about us, and see
great and good men, zealous in the work of the Lord, eager to spread the
"gospel," or make known God's truth, that we are compelled to acknowledge
that they come under this anathema! We dare not tell them that they are
included, lest we give offence, and, figuratively, cut off their ears, and
they will not even listen to the truth that alone is able to set them
free.
This is probably our last effort to differentiate
between these two evangels, so we solicit the prayers of all God's saints,
that we may be empowered to reach the hearts of those who are under this
solemn adjuration, but have never considered the possibility that it
applies to them. We especially pray for those who, like the Galatians,
have fallen out of grace (Gal.5:4), after having had a glimpse of the
evangel which is ours in Christ Jesus.
Israel's salvation is a great national demonstration,
in which that people as a unit are segregated to show what is in humanity.
God deals with them in the flesh, and under law, and under a
covenant, with a gradually increasing admixture of grace and faith. The
prime object of this prolonged and varied demonstration is not their
salvation, but to show beyond question that mankind, even under the most
favorable conditions is utterly lost without God. Their testings prove
conclusively that there is nothing good in the flesh. Their trial shows
that men cannot observe a law. The tryout makes it clear that they are
incapable of keeping a covenant. Works are of no avail in salvation.
Man's failure in this great demonstration is of the greatest value to the
race and the universe. Until we see this, we are inclined to question its
worth, and charge God with failure, and to repeat the experiment in our
own experience, only to involve ourselves in defeat, and in the
disillusionment which is bound to follow.
The salvation we have today begins where Israel's leaves off. The Adamic
race is discarded and there is a new humanity. We have no confidence in
the flesh; we are dead to the law; we keep no covenant; we are
crucified and buried with Christ, and, by faith, are roused and
seated with Him in a totally new environment, among the celestials. We
profit by the failures of the Circumcision, and need not and should not
imitate the distressing experiments which demonstrate, for all who can
see, man's inability to save himself or to contribute anything towards his
own deliverance. If we persist in repeating these tests, it will only
further confirm our inability to our own confusion and discomfiture. The
admixture of Circumcision truth, the mingling of Peter's evangel with
Paul's, has made a medley which lacks the essential features of both. It
is this mixture which has caused most of the confusion among the saints,
and has well-nigh eclipsed the evangel of the Uncircumcision.
WORKS AND FAITH
There are really only two means of salvation in the
eons, works and faith. Israel is the chosen example to expose the
futility of works, even when flavored with faith. Not knowing God, or
acknowledging His deity, Christendom is inevitably drawn away by
self-confidence into the sphere of works, and seeks to justify this course
by appealing to that part of the Bible which belongs to Israel, where
works have a place. The continual confusion and conflict on this subject
will never be settled until it is seen that both sides have support "in
the Bible," when all of it is applied indiscriminately to all, when it is
not correctly cut. But when we realize that God uses works in Israel in
order to demonstrate their futility, then we are more than ever
satisfied to leave salvation to the Saviour, and to repudiate the false
foundation of our own deeds.
DO AND LIVE vs. LIVE AND DO
The contrast between the gospel of the Circumcision and
that of the Uncircumcision may be expressed in the same words if we only
change their order. Do and live is the order for the Circumcision and
all other religionists. Life as the result of human effort is one of the
most illogical and preposterous propositions that can well be expressed.
Nowhere, in the course of human history, has a man ever evolved life by
his acts. He has succeeded infamously in doing his fellows to death.
Why, then, should he be so insufferably conceited as to imagine that he
can defeat death or bring about life by his puny and powerless practices?
On the other hand, no one can do anything without the loan of life from
God. This is evident everywhere, not only in the sphere of the evangel.
Nothing but the salvation that gives life can enable us to work. The only
salvation worthy of the name begins with the gift of life. With us it is
live and do. We work because we are saved, not because we want to save
ourselves.
The same kind of impermanent, transitory salvation will
be found throughout the Circumcision writings. In my early life of faith I
was troubled by these scriptures and sought a solution. I was deeply
impressed by what we called the assurance of salvation, but could never
find a satisfactory explanation of the sixth of Hebrews and other texts of
like tenor until I began to see the difference between the truth for the
nation of Israel and that for the other nations in this administration.
Even the great stress laid on "safety, certainty and enjoyment" by my
friends failed to explain how some who had actually tasted of the powers
of the future eon fell aside and were disqualified for the kingdom
(Heb.6:4-8). This clearly refers to those who listened to Peter on the
day of Pentecost, who were saved from that crooked generation and added to
the rest by the Lord Himself (Acts 2:40,47). The record in Acts runs
along the same lines as the exodus. Many who were saved from Egypt fell in
the wilderness, and many who were saved from that crooked generation fell
away when the kingdom did not come, in the period of the book of Acts.
The unbeliever's favorite form of salvation is
undiluted works, independent of God. The believer's favorite form of
salvation is works with the help of the Lord. Few, indeed, dare to trust
Him unreservedly as their Saviour. This sad state is largely due to the
use of scriptures which do not apply to us today, but concern the
Circumcision and their temporary testings, which are intended to show the
uselessness of works as a means of salvation. Even those of us who are
profoundly convinced that grace is the prime spring of God's dealings
with His saints in this administration are inclined to leave it out of our
dealings with one another. We prefer justice because we each feel that we
have been just and, in case of a clash, the other has been unjust. We
would like to display the justice of our cause before the saints and the
world, when we ought rather to consider our fellow saint and hide his
injustice, if it is that. Let us not seek to get our rights, to square up
accounts now, but rather suffer wrong. The bema of Christ will set all
right. It cannot be done before that day.
THE GREAT ENIGMA
"Enigma" is the divine description of God's earlier
revelation to the Circumcision, to whom first were confided the oracles of
God (1 Cor.13:12). Our venerable Authorized Version speaks of it as being
seen "through a glass, darkly," which is itself difficult to understand in
these days of almost invisible glass. Rather, God spoke to them
indirectly, and they perceived it as by means of ancient mirrors, or as we
see things reflected in an imperfectly polished, uneven surface. Now,
however, that we have the later revelation through Paul, all this can be
rectified. We can by-pass the mirror and see things as they actually are,
face to face (1 Cor.13:12). In order to look beyond the puzzling
revelations before Paul came, we should always consider what he has to
say, first, in order to get to the bottom, the solid sub-stratum of
actuality.
PAUL'S BASIC REVELATIONS
In these studies, before we search for the truth in the
Circumcision writings on any point we will first see what Paul has to say,
for he gives us the result of the experiments which were tried with
Israel, and shows that, beneath the superficial and apparent object, there
was a different and deeper aim. The surface failure is deceptive because,
in reality, it is a success, seeing that the demonstration was intended to
expose the inability of man in all his efforts. Nevertheless, when we
examine the earlier records more minutely in this light, we will discover,
as a rule, that it contains intimations of the truth which can hardly be
seen without the later revelations. God knew very well how His experiments
would turn out. He does not try them in order to learn the truth for
Himself, but in order to demonstrate them to His creatures, and so prepare
them for the consummation, when they will not look for aught in
themselves, but find their All in Him.
SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE
One cause of confusion is the fact that Paul uses the
same terms as the Circumcision evangel to denote the reality which has
displaced the riddle. He goes so far as to flatly contradict himself in
the most important difference of all. Although he draws a sharp line
between the Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Ephesians, he actually
insists that the Uncircumcision are the Circumcision in Philippians
(3:3)! As we have the reality, of which circumcision is only the outward
sign, he boldly dubs them the Maimcision, who mutilate the flesh,
while we are the true and genuine Circumcision, who cut off the flesh
entirely. The figurative use of literal terms concerned with God's
dealings with Israel, such as kingdom, pardon, etc., leads many to miss
the force of God's latest unfoldings, and to mix it all into one
incoherent mess.
BAPTISM
This highly figurative language has caused much
confusion in connection with baptism. Although we are no more baptized
than we are circumcised, the mere fact that our baptism is spoken of
(Rom.6:4; Eph.4:5; Col.2:12), has led to great confusion of thought
between the shadow and the substance. The circumcision evangel demands the
shadow, ceremonial cleansing in water, whether the heart is purified, or
not. But the evangel of the Uncircumcision insists only on the reality,
our cleansing in Christ. An infant may be sprinkled with all the waters of
the Jordan river, yet it will not be cleansed from sin. A man may be
dipped under all the water in the seven seas, yet his heart will not be
pure in God's sight. Baptism in Christ's death, that alone clears us
completely from everything that defiles.
WHY THESE TWO EVANGELS
Why are there two evangels? Were the object of both
merely to rescue the sinner from a terrible doom, then one should suffice.
But when we see that one evangel is part of God's great demonstration of
the futility and failure of the flesh, hence must be based on flesh, and
the other acknowledges the result of this demonstration, hence is based on
spirit, then we see that they are nearly as wide apart as the poles. With
such totally divergent objects in view they cannot help but differ
radically, and any mixture is bound to be confusing and contradictory.
The confusion in Christendom comes from mixing and
muddling two evangels with entirely different objects, and the result is a
bewildering chaos in which neither one survives in anything like its
scriptural form.
Our religious leaders draw most of their doctrines from
Peter, and have little patience with Paul, who alone has the truth for
today, and who is the only one who can clear up the enigma of Peter's
evangel as well. A great deal has been done by pointing out the
differences which lie on the surface of the Scriptures. These definite
statements should be enough. But there is such a tremendous weight of
tradition to overcome that few are able to see what is so plainly written.
For their sakes, and to establish those who see the truth, we will try to
dig deeper, and examine more minutely those passages which deal with the
matter. As Abraham's justification by faith is the seed plot of the
uncircumcision evangel, his experiences will be considered at length.
It will be of great interest and profit if we note
carefully the striking contrast between Yahweh's dealings with Abram, His
friend, before and after his circumcision, the differences between the
fifteenth and seventeenth chapters of Genesis. In the former we have
faith and righteousness and the star seed. In the latter we have
walk and a covenant and the sand seed. These should never be
confused, even when they seem to merge in the spiritual members of Abram's
physical offspring.
