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With the OT saint, God gave physical proof of His existence by the way of miracles in order that He could eliminate any doubt of His reality. Then His love for others could be seen, that they might seek Him and trust in Him, for they “required a sign” (1Co 1:22 – though a lessor faith yet His plan – Jhn 20 29). After gaining those He knew would trust in Him He gradually weaned believers from physical proof to non-physical proof, in order that faith in His love will be in its greatest capacity before the next life, which faith will no longer be necessary (2Co 5:7).
What have we now who are His? An eternal godly new nature (in temporary coexistence with the old nature)! New, because it’s a “creation” after the image of Christ (Col 3:10), a never-before-existing entity, establishing being “partakers of the divine nature” (2Pe 1:4). Believers soon learn the disappointment of seeking earthly things to contribute godly joy and its heavenly-oriented strengths; and that being given to them “all things that pertains to life and godliness” (2Pe 1:3) are to be found only from where they derive—Heaven—appropriated from There, for practical application here in this earthen-wilderness!
Though reborn, there remains the difficulties (“infirmities”) that only teach the comforts of the Father’s counsels through the indwelling “mind of Christ” (1Co 2:16); which Mind is known only via the Word of God and its Author, the Spirit of God. Blessed and satisfied are those who “shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4).
NC
There is a great difference between the believer’s place on earth, and that of the saints before the ascension of the Lord Jesus. Since His rejection (by the majority of mankind – Mat 7:13, 14—NC) and His sitting down in glory, the whole of this world (that which relates only to this life and not the next—NC) is unproductive of anything for a member of His Body.
Before His rejection, even during His walk on earth, the earth yielded something; He was here, and form His hand it was made to yield. He obliged evil and adverse things here to give way; infirmities were overborne, and made to yield present blessing to His people. Now since His rejection, and His sitting down in heaven, there is a new scene where the blessing is enjoyed without hindrance, and the “man in Christ” is there with Him.
There I find I am blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph 1:3). If I am blessed with all there, then I am of course not to expect to find any from here (i.e. any coming from here, but from There while here—NC); but this is quite a new and difficult lesson for the believer to learn. If I can find no spiritual blessing here, then I surely must feel this to be a desert. If spiritual blessing is now known to my soul as the true blessing, then I am to accept this—that there is none of the order to be found here, but all in heaven, now (all accessible there from here via the Spirit—NC).
This of itself in a very peculiar and distinct way diverts the soul from this scene, and turns it to the One in heaven, But even after one has learned that there is no spiritual blessing anywhere but in heaven (Jhn 3:27), there is exercise of soul in walking through this wilderness scene, even though we may have ceased to expect from it.
This is not an easy thing for the believer in full consciousness of the rights of his Father. A “young man” who has “overcome the wicked one” (1Jo 2:13) would naturally say to himself that God has rights in the world, and that he was at liberty to claim them and possess them, and therefore it is said to such, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.”
With an Old Testament saint there was the power of God here to produce from things here (physically proven faith, unlike now, believing without natural proof - Jhn 20:29—NC) an expression of His thought and love for His people, such as they were able to appreciate. Now that expression of the Father’s love is made in heaven, where there is no force (natural evidence—NC) used to produce it. It is all for acceptance on our part, and our enjoyment depends on the amount or extent of our faith, and acceptance of it.
There we are furnished as Paul was, outside and above all the earth and man, and when down here, instead of finding anything to help me, and to afford strength and joy to me, I find everything the reverse; so that instead of it being the garden of the Lord, as it was to the Old Testament saint when he walked faithfully, it is a desert, where not only is there nothing that contributed to me, but where I must reisist the very air (1Jo 2:15—NC), because it is pestilential, and I must, on this desert island where I am set as Christ’s witness, draw all my supplies from above.
I must seek and receive from outside of this wilderness land, and I must refuse all in it (all that is not heaven-related—NC). The Old Testament saint sought and received in it (God adding things from heaven for His people Israel—NC); the mighty power of God fed him—the faithful one (believer—NC), with the finest wheat, and “with honey out of the rock” satisfied him (Psa 81:16); but now, while you are here, there is not anything for you here, but all your supplies must come to you from above. Here, you have only the power of the Lord Jesus to make you strong in your weakness, so that a sense of weakness and dependence is great gain (e.g. 1Ti 6:6—NC).
I am looking to Him who is above this scene, and I know His strength in my weakness, and my enjoyment is not from this scene but completely outside of it, with Him in glory. The OT believer had joy from God’s gifts to him here, and knew His power in making things here contribute to his welfare. It will be the same again, only infinitely more so, in the millennium kingdom.
I know and have joy outside of the place, in heaven from what the Father had made mine there, and here I do not seek that anything should contribute to me; but while I resist everything in the power of the Spirit, I become a contributor of the grace which nourishes and comforts me outside of it in heaven. But I need the Lord Jesus’ Life to enable me to rise above my sense of infirmity in this world and in my body of flesh, so that not only does this scene not contribute to me, but it makes me feel my weakness and need, and that I not only have to rise out of it to find and enjoy my blessings, but that I need His power in it, and as I prove His strength I take pleasure in infirmities.
With the Old Testament saint the infirmities were removed, and everything was by the power of God made to contribute to His people. Hence it is a great change, and often a difficult lesson to accept fully that nothing contributes to me in this land, but on the contrary that I “take pleasure in my infirmities” in it, in order that the power of Christ may rest on me. I am not only not contributed to here, but my infirmity is exposed, and it becomes a “pleasure” to me that Christ’s power may rest on me (2Co 12:9).
—J B Stoney (1814-1897)
What have we now who are His? An eternal godly new nature (in temporary coexistence with the old nature)! New, because it’s a “creation” after the image of Christ (Col 3:10), a never-before-existing entity, establishing being “partakers of the divine nature” (2Pe 1:4). Believers soon learn the disappointment of seeking earthly things to contribute godly joy and its heavenly-oriented strengths; and that being given to them “all things that pertains to life and godliness” (2Pe 1:3) are to be found only from where they derive—Heaven—appropriated from There, for practical application here in this earthen-wilderness!
Though reborn, there remains the difficulties (“infirmities”) that only teach the comforts of the Father’s counsels through the indwelling “mind of Christ” (1Co 2:16); which Mind is known only via the Word of God and its Author, the Spirit of God. Blessed and satisfied are those who “shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4).
NC
“They That Are Heavenly”
There is a great difference between the believer’s place on earth, and that of the saints before the ascension of the Lord Jesus. Since His rejection (by the majority of mankind – Mat 7:13, 14—NC) and His sitting down in glory, the whole of this world (that which relates only to this life and not the next—NC) is unproductive of anything for a member of His Body.
Before His rejection, even during His walk on earth, the earth yielded something; He was here, and form His hand it was made to yield. He obliged evil and adverse things here to give way; infirmities were overborne, and made to yield present blessing to His people. Now since His rejection, and His sitting down in heaven, there is a new scene where the blessing is enjoyed without hindrance, and the “man in Christ” is there with Him.
There I find I am blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph 1:3). If I am blessed with all there, then I am of course not to expect to find any from here (i.e. any coming from here, but from There while here—NC); but this is quite a new and difficult lesson for the believer to learn. If I can find no spiritual blessing here, then I surely must feel this to be a desert. If spiritual blessing is now known to my soul as the true blessing, then I am to accept this—that there is none of the order to be found here, but all in heaven, now (all accessible there from here via the Spirit—NC).
This of itself in a very peculiar and distinct way diverts the soul from this scene, and turns it to the One in heaven, But even after one has learned that there is no spiritual blessing anywhere but in heaven (Jhn 3:27), there is exercise of soul in walking through this wilderness scene, even though we may have ceased to expect from it.
This is not an easy thing for the believer in full consciousness of the rights of his Father. A “young man” who has “overcome the wicked one” (1Jo 2:13) would naturally say to himself that God has rights in the world, and that he was at liberty to claim them and possess them, and therefore it is said to such, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.”
With an Old Testament saint there was the power of God here to produce from things here (physically proven faith, unlike now, believing without natural proof - Jhn 20:29—NC) an expression of His thought and love for His people, such as they were able to appreciate. Now that expression of the Father’s love is made in heaven, where there is no force (natural evidence—NC) used to produce it. It is all for acceptance on our part, and our enjoyment depends on the amount or extent of our faith, and acceptance of it.
There we are furnished as Paul was, outside and above all the earth and man, and when down here, instead of finding anything to help me, and to afford strength and joy to me, I find everything the reverse; so that instead of it being the garden of the Lord, as it was to the Old Testament saint when he walked faithfully, it is a desert, where not only is there nothing that contributed to me, but where I must reisist the very air (1Jo 2:15—NC), because it is pestilential, and I must, on this desert island where I am set as Christ’s witness, draw all my supplies from above.
I must seek and receive from outside of this wilderness land, and I must refuse all in it (all that is not heaven-related—NC). The Old Testament saint sought and received in it (God adding things from heaven for His people Israel—NC); the mighty power of God fed him—the faithful one (believer—NC), with the finest wheat, and “with honey out of the rock” satisfied him (Psa 81:16); but now, while you are here, there is not anything for you here, but all your supplies must come to you from above. Here, you have only the power of the Lord Jesus to make you strong in your weakness, so that a sense of weakness and dependence is great gain (e.g. 1Ti 6:6—NC).
I am looking to Him who is above this scene, and I know His strength in my weakness, and my enjoyment is not from this scene but completely outside of it, with Him in glory. The OT believer had joy from God’s gifts to him here, and knew His power in making things here contribute to his welfare. It will be the same again, only infinitely more so, in the millennium kingdom.
I know and have joy outside of the place, in heaven from what the Father had made mine there, and here I do not seek that anything should contribute to me; but while I resist everything in the power of the Spirit, I become a contributor of the grace which nourishes and comforts me outside of it in heaven. But I need the Lord Jesus’ Life to enable me to rise above my sense of infirmity in this world and in my body of flesh, so that not only does this scene not contribute to me, but it makes me feel my weakness and need, and that I not only have to rise out of it to find and enjoy my blessings, but that I need His power in it, and as I prove His strength I take pleasure in infirmities.
With the Old Testament saint the infirmities were removed, and everything was by the power of God made to contribute to His people. Hence it is a great change, and often a difficult lesson to accept fully that nothing contributes to me in this land, but on the contrary that I “take pleasure in my infirmities” in it, in order that the power of Christ may rest on me. I am not only not contributed to here, but my infirmity is exposed, and it becomes a “pleasure” to me that Christ’s power may rest on me (2Co 12:9).
—J B Stoney (1814-1897)
