In Heavenly Places
In Heavenly Places
And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:6
Sanctification is the impartation to us of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ. It is His patience, His love, His holiness, His faith, His purity, His godliness that are manifested in and through every sanctified soul. The presentation that God by sanctification plants within us His Spirit, and then setting Jesus Christ before us says—“There is your Example, follow Him and I will help you, but you must do your best to follow Him and do what He did,” is an error. It is not true to experience, and, thank God, it is not true to the wonderful Gospel of the grace of God. The mystery of sanctification is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” “That which hath been made was life in Him” (rv mg), that is, Jesus Christ can create in us the image of God even as it was in Himself.
1. The Impartial Power of God
And hath raised us up.
Who are the “us” He has raised up? We have pointed out the “any man” aspect, and it needs pointing out because we often hear a man say—“Well, it cannot mean me, I’m not a true, fine-spirited person; my past life has been very sordid; I have not had the advantages of other people, and it cannot mean me; God cannot mean that by His marvellous grace He can raise me up.” Yes, He can, and it is just such a man He does mean. God stoops down to the very lowest, to the very weakest, to the sons of disobedience, the children of wrath, and raises them right up. In this particular instance Paul is driving home the impartiality of God with more than usual insistence; he is talking to Gentiles and he says that God by the Cross of Jesus Christ makes no distinction between Jew and Gentile in the matter of personal salvation. Thank God for the impartiality of His grace!
Any man, every man, we ourselves, may partake of this marvellous raising up whereby God puts us into the wonderful life of His Son, and the very qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted to us. There is plenty of room to grow in the heavenly places; room for the head to grow, for the heart to grow, for the bodily relationships to grow, for the spirit to grow—plenty of room for every phase of us to grow into the realisation of what a marvellous Being our Lord Jesus Christ is.
“And hath quickened us together with Christ.” The illustration Paul uses is that as God raised the dead body of Jesus, so He has quickened those who were dead in trespasses and sins and has raised them up with Jesus. It means that there is a participation now in all the wonderful perfections of Jesus Christ, and that ultimately “we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”
2. The Inviolable Place of God
Heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
That is where God raises us. We do not get there by climbing, by aspiring, by struggling, by consecration, or by vows; God lifts us right straight up out of sin, inability and weakness, lust and disobedience, wrath and self-seeking—lifts us right up out of all this, “up, up to the whiter than snow shine,” to the heavenly places where Jesus Christ lived when He was on earth, and where He lives to this hour in the fullness of the plenitude of His power. May God never relieve us from the wonder of it. We are lifted up into that inviolable place that cannot be defiled, and Paul states that God can raise us up there now, and that the wonder of sitting in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus is to be manifested in our lives while we are here on earth.
“And made us sit together.” Sit? But I have to earn my living! Sit? But I am in the midst of the wild turmoil of city life! Sit? But I have my calling in life and my ambitions to fulfil! Paul says that God has raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We must have in our minds that by “heavenly places” is meant all that Jesus Christ was when He was down here, and all that He is revealed to be now by the Word; and God raises us up to sit together with Him there. There is ample time and ample room to grow in the heavenly places.
3. The Symbols in the Heavenly Places
Have you ever noticed the kind of pictures God gives to the saints? They are always pictures of creation, never pictures of men. God speaks of the unfailing stars and the upholding of the “worm Jacob.” He talks about the marvels of creation, and makes His people forget the rush of business ideas that stamp the kingdoms of this world. The Spirit of God says—“Do not take your pattern and print from those; the God Who holds you is the God Who made the world—take your pattern from Him.” The marvellous characteristic of the Spirit of God in you and me when we are raised up to the heavenly places in Christ Jesus is that we look to the Creator, and see that the marvellous Being Who made the world and upholds all things by the word of His Power is the One Who keeps us in every particular.
Our Lord always took His illustrations from His Father’s handiwork. In illustrating the spiritual life, our tendency is to catch the tricks of the world, to watch the energy of the business man, and to apply these methods to God’s work. Jesus Christ tells us to take the lessons of our lives from the things men never look at—“Consider the lilies”; “Behold the fowls of the air.” How often do we look at clouds, or grass, at sparrows, or flowers? Why, we have no time to look at them, we are in the rush of things—it is absurd to sit dreaming about sparrows and trees and clouds! Thank God, when He raises us to the heavenly places, He manifests in us the very mind that was in Christ Jesus, unhasting and unresting, calm, steady and strong.
4. The Safety of the Heavenlies
My peace I give unto you. (John 14:27)
Your life is hid with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)
We are familiar with these verses, but has God ever struck the marvel out of them until we are lost in wonder, love, and praise as they are applied to us as sanctified souls? “My peace I give unto you.” We talk about the peace of Jesus, but have we ever realised what that peace was like? Read the story of His life, the thirty years of quiet submission at Nazareth, the three years of service, the slander and spite, backbiting and hatred He endured, all unfathomably worse than anything we shall ever have to go through; and His peace was undisturbed, it could not be violated. It is that peace that God will exhibit in us in the heavenly places; not a peace like it, but that peace. In all the rush of life, in working for our living, in all conditions of bodily life, wherever God engineers our circumstances—“My peace”; the imperturbable, inviolable peace of Jesus imparted to us in every detail of our lives. “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” Have we allowed the wonder of it to enwrap us round and soak us through until we begin to realise the ample room there is to grow there? “The secret place of the Most High,” absolutely secure and safe.
As we go on in life and grow in grace, we realise more and more wonderingly what the peace of Jesus means. Watch the saint who is sanctified, “in tumults,” Paul says—tribulation, turmoil, trouble, afflictions all around everywhere, yet the peace of Jesus is gifted and manifests itself, and the life grows as the lily spiritually. Tolstoi made the blunder of applying the teaching of Jesus to men who were not born again of the Holy Ghost, and with what result? They found it impossible to carry it out. But when we are born again from above (rv mg), quickened and raised up by God, we find it is possible to consider the lilies because we have not only the peace of God, but the very peace that characterised Jesus Christ; we are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, absolutely safe, the mind imperturbably ensphered in Christ. “For ye are dead,” says Paul; that is, the old way of looking at things, the old way of doing things, the old fuss and fume are dead, and we are a new creation (rv mg) in Christ Jesus, and in that new creation is manifested the very peace that was manifested in Jesus Christ.
5. The Strength in the Heavenlies
All spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3)
The unsearchable riches of Christ. (Ephesians 3:8)
God is able to make all grace abound toward you. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
These verses mean that just as the overflowing, omnipotent power of God was exhibited in and through our Lord, so it will be exhibited in and through us when we are raised up into the heavenly places. Get into the habit of saying—“Lord Jesus, prove Thyself sufficient in me for this thing now.” Do not say—“Oh Lord, show me what to do”; let Him do it and it will be done. It is His perfections, not ours; His patience, His love, His holiness, His strength—“all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus.” How blind we are! There is a danger with the children of God of getting too familiar with sublime things. We talk so much about these wonderful realities, and forget that we have to exhibit them in our lives. It is perilously possible to mistake the exposition of the truth for the truth; to run away with the idea that because we are able to expound these things we are living them too. Paul’s warning comes home to us—“. . . lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”
6. The Sight in the Heavenlies
Blessed are the pure in heart. (Matthew 5:8)
What do we mean by “pure in heart”? We mean nothing less and nothing else than what the Son of God was and is. When God raises us up into the heavenly places He imparts to us the very purity that is Jesus Christ’s. That is what the sanctified life means—the undisturbable range of His peace, the unshakeable, indefatigable power of His strength, and the unfathomable, crystalline purity of His holiness. There is plenty of room in the heavenly places to grow into the realisation of the unfathomable depths of the purity of Christ’s heart.
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” When the Son of God “walked this earth with naked feet, and wove with human hands the creed of creeds,” He understood the revealed counsels of His Father to Him because His heart was pure, and to the sanctified soul God says—“Friend, come up higher.” Jesus warns the disciple never to be afraid of the contempt of the world when he possesses spiritual discernment. Those who are in the heavenly places see God’s counsels in what to the wisdom of the world is arrogant stupidity. We can never stand for one second in the heavenly places in a secular mood. Jesus never had secular moods, His heart was never defiled by secular thinking or by secular ways. What do we mean by secular ways? Secularity has to do with what we desire within, not with what happens to our bodies. What do we desire most? What the heart of Jesus wanted most was God’s glory, and sanctification means that that same desire is imparted to us. The wonder of a pure heart is that it is as pure as Jesus Christ’s heart. Sanctification does not mean that a purity like Jesus Christ’s is gifted to us, but that His purity is gifted to us. Our Lord was wonderfully sensitive to the things of God, and He says—“all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” His Father distinctly revealed things to Him.
The sanctified soul realises with growing amazement what we are trying feebly to put into words, that all these things are ours if we are willing for God to realise His claim in us. “All things are yours . . . and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”
To be “in Christ Jesus” means that we are initiated into the position of sons. Do you know how God speaks to His sons? He softly breathes His stern messages in the heavenly places, with what result? There is never any panic in His sons. The Son of God had pre-intimations of what was to happen, and as we walk with the mind stayed where God places it by sanctification, in that way steadfastly keeping our garments white, we will find that nothing strikes us with surprise or with panic. God never allows it to; He keeps us in perfect peace while He whispers His secrets and reveals His counsels, We are struck with panic whenever we turn out of the way; when we forget to “grow up into Him in all things”; when we forget to keep the childlike weakness which never dreams it can look at things in the way Jesus does apart from His Spirit.
“Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” Our Lord never pried into His Father’s secrets, neither will the saint. Some have made the blunder of trying to wrest God’s secrets from Him. That was never Jesus Christ’s way, nor is it communicated by the Spirit of God. God always gifted His intimations to His Son. How many of us have allowed God to reveal His counsels to us in this way, and how many of us are being humiliated by realising that we have been trying to probe into God’s secrets some other way? When we are raised up into the heavenly places, it is a life of joy unspeakable and full of glory.
One word of warning—we must guard the life where the Spirit of God warns we should guard it, and the first thing to be guarded against is inordinate curiosity. Remember what Jesus said of Himself, and of the Holy Spirit: “I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father hath taught Me, I speak these things.” “The Spirit of truth . . . shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak.” When our minds are stayed upon God and we are growing in the realisation of the purity of Christ’s heart and His wonderful strength and power, we will find that that same characteristic is being worked out in us, there is no mental or intellectual insubordination, but a complete subordination to Jesus Christ, even as He was subordinated to His Father. The same thing is true of our wills; just as Jesus brought His will into subjection to His Father and said—“I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me,” when we are raised up to the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, we will manifest the same.
Whenever a decline comes, whenever there is a tendency to turn aside, we will find God is a consuming fire: He will hold and hurt cruelly, and we may cry out to Him to let us go, but He will not let us go. God loves us too much to let us go, and He will burn and burn until there is nothing left but the purity that is as pure as He is—unless we determine to side with the impure and become as reprobate silver. Men are apt to cry to God to stop—“If only God would leave me alone!” God never will. His passionate, inexorable love never allows Him to leave men alone, and with His children He will shake everything that can be shaken till there is nothing that can be shaken any more; then will abide the consuming fire of God until the life is changed into the same image from glory to glory, and men see that strong family likeness to Jesus that can never be mistaken.