The Inheritance of the Saints
The Inheritance of the Saints
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Colossians 1:12
Sanctification means the impartation to us and through us of the Lord Jesus Christ, His patience, His purity, His holiness. It is not that Jesus Christ enables us to imitate Him; not that the power of God is in us and we try our best and fail, and try again; but that the very virtues of Jesus Christ are manifested in our mortal flesh.
1. The Possession of Light
The inheritance of the saints in light.
How often God’s book refers to God as light, to Jesus Christ as light, to the Spirit of God as light, and to the saints as light. By sanctification God places us in the light that He is in, the light in which our Lord Jesus lived His life. “And the life was the light of men.” Our inheritance in light means that we manifest in our mortal flesh the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. The “light” means the very things He exhibited, a life full of approach to God, full of understanding of God and of man.
“He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Supposing you are walking over a moor at night, you know there is a path but it is too dark and obscure for you to see; then the moon struggles through the clouds and you see the path, a clear strip of white, straight across the hill; in a little while all is obscure again, but you have seen the path and you know the way to go. There are times in our experience when life is just like that. We do not see the path though we know it is there, then the light shines and we see it, and when darkness comes again we can step boldly. Sometimes the light is as the moonlight or the dawn, or it comes as a terrifying flash of lightning, when all of a sudden we see the way we should go. “While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light” (John 12:36). Have we believed in the light we have had? Can we recall the time when the light of God in the Face of Jesus Christ was clearer to us than anything else has ever been, when we saw perfectly clearly and understood exactly what the Lord wanted? Did we believe in that light; and have we walked up to the light? Can we say to-night, “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision”? So many of us see the light, we see the way across the moor; by a sudden lightning flash of God’s revealing grace we see the way to go, but we do not take it. We say, “Oh, yes, I did receive the Spirit of God, and I thought that it would be like this and that, but it has not been.” The reason is that we did not believe in the light when it was given. You say, “I am a Christian, I have been born of the Spirit of God; I understand that sanctification is the qualities of the Lord Jesus being exhibited in me; only two weeks ago I had a wonderful time of communion with the Lord in the heavenly places; I saw the way so clearly, and I knew exactly what I should do in the circumstances I was in; but I failed to do it.” “While ye have light, believe in the light,” and slowly and surely we shall find what our Lord said is true—“he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
If we have entered into the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, the light has shone, and, this is the marvellous thing, as we begin to do what we know the Lord would have us do, we find He does not enable us to do it, He simply puts through us all His power and the thing is done in His way. Thank God for everyone who has seen the light, who has understood how the Lord Jesus Christ clears away the darkness and brings the light by showing His own characteristics through us.
Did I believe the light when I had it? Is there someone who had the light a year ago, last week, you saw clearly what God wanted; did you obey the light? You answer, “No, I did not.” Well, tell Him so, and thank God there is another opportunity; and those who have obeyed the light and have been going on, ask God to confirm you in the way that you may be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
One remarkable thing about our Lord’s life is that He always understood that His Father was right. I wonder if we always do? There is much that is obscure, much we cannot understand, but are we certain that our Father understands? Have we let Jesus Christ so manifest Himself in us that we know that the Father always does things well? When we come across a dark trial, such as war, or a trial more personal and peculiarly our own, something that is a distress and a pain and a wildness, with no light or liberty, the danger is that we begin to say, “Why should this happen to me? Why should I be plunged into this darkness?” But if we remember our possession of light, the Son of God in all His understanding of the Father takes possession of us absolutely, and we see in our hearts just as Jesus Christ saw. That is the marvel of sanctification. At the threshold of every new experience, of every new phase of the truth of God, there is a margin of darkness where we have this glorious test—will I let the Son of God manifest Himself in my mortal flesh in this thing, and will I possess the light that God has given me? If so, we shall see just as Jesus Christ saw.
2. Partakers of Light
There is a difference between this inheritance and an earthly inheritance. When we partake in an earthly inheritance it becomes a particular possession of our own that no one else can have, and not only so but by taking it we may impoverish someone else. The marvellous thing about the inheritance of the saints in light is that when we take our part of the inheritance, everyone else is blessed in the taking; but if we refuse to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, we rob others of its glory and its wonder.
There is another thing about the possession of light in Jesus Christ: my possession of light is quite different from yours. Each of us has a particular possession of light that no one else can have, and if we refuse to take our possession, everyone else will suffer. In every saint’s life there is a particular personal edition of the possession of light, and until that is partaken of with full-hearted confidence, all the others suffer. The difficulty is that the round person wants to be in the square hole; this shows how we become deflected from the light that is in Christ. There is a possession of light that the Spirit distributes to each one according to the perfect wisdom of God. It is Satan, not God, who makes a man say everyone must be just as he is. As we participate in the light and the Son of God is manifested in us in our particular setting, there will be marvellous blessing to all the people round about. The test for apostles and teachers is not that they talk wonderful stuff, not that they are able to expound God’s word, but that they edify the saints (Ephesians 4:12). No individual can develop a holy life with God without benefiting all other saints. I wonder if we have been obedient to the heavenly vision, or have we been hankering after being like someone else?
One of the greatest dangers of Satan when he comes as an angel of light is that he tries to persuade the saint of God that he must let go the possession of what God wants him to have and take a possession belonging to someone else. If a man has a special gift for preaching God’s truth, Satan will try to persuade him that preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ is not what God has called him to do, but that he has been called to live a quiet life with God in secret. Always remember that the tiniest deflection of the eye or the heart away from God in light, and from Jesus Christ in light, and from obeying the light when it is given, will mean a deflection for a long while, much sorrow and much distress. Thank God He does not leave His children alone; there is much pain and distress, but He will always bring them back.
I wonder if we have seen Jesus Christ as a possession of light—in our circumstances, in our business, in our home relations, or in whatever it may be? Have we seen clearly what God wants us to do, and have we done it? As surely as we begin to put ourselves into the path of obedience, the perfections of the Son of God are manifested through us with such a great brilliancy of light that we will never think of taking credit to ourselves for it. One step in the right direction in obedience to the light, and the manifestation of the Son of God in your mortal flesh is as certain as that God is on His throne. When once God’s light has come to us through Jesus Christ, we must never hang back, but obey; and we shall not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
“As He is, so are we.” The sanctified life is a life that bears a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, a life that exhibits His virtues, His patience, His love, His holiness. Slowly and surely we learn the great secret of eternal life, which is to know God.
Every bit of knowledge that we have of God fills us with ineffable joy. Remember what Jesus said to His disciples—“That My joy might be in you” (rv). What was the joy of Jesus? That He understood the Father. Do we understand God on any one point? If we do, we will know something of the joy that Jesus had. It is a wonderful possession, it is the very characteristic of Jesus. To understand the tiniest bit of truth about God is to love it with all our heart and soul and mind; all that lies dark and obscure just now is one day going to be as clear, as radiantly and joyously clear, as the bit we have seen. No wonder God counsels us to be patient. Little by little everything will be brought into the light until we understand as Jesus Christ understood. The whole of Eternity will be taken up with understanding and knowing God, and, thank God, we may begin to know Him down here. The sanctified life means that we begin to understand God and to manifest the life of the Son of God in our mortal flesh.
Before we get hold of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God gets hold of us, we are apt to be taken up with the outside of things, we cling to them and mistake them for the essential reality until slowly they begin to dwindle from us and to turn to ashes and disappointment. But when we are made partakers of light we are wedded to God’s realities behind the things that are seen, and we remain absolutely true to Him.
3. Light Indwelling
Now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light. (Ephesians 5:8)
What we have in the kingdom of light, we give. That is always the characteristic. If we try to picture to others the glory of communion with God without being in close contact with God ourselves, we will paralyse the imagination of those we talk to. George MacDonald, in his poem “The Disciple,” pictures the sense of dreary disappointment that came to a boy when he heard it said that godly people were as pillars in the temple of God—
Straightway my heart is like a clod,
My spirit wrapt in doubt:—
A pillar in the house of God,
And never more go out!
That will always be the result when we try to portray a truth of God without being partakers of the light, without being lifted into the inheritance.
As we partake of this possession of light, it is as if the Son of God lifted the veil from the way God created things. He lifts our eyes up to the stars and says—“Do you see those? Every one of them is known to your Father in heaven,” and something we cannot state in words gets hold of our souls and it means this—God is so full of light that He knows us down to the tiniest detail of our lives. Then another time He shows us the makeup of a daisy and He says—“That was God’s thought when He created a daisy,” and slowly the Spirit of God makes our lives into exactly God’s idea of what we ought to be.
By sanctification we are placed in the will of God. We have not to ask what the will of God is, we are the will of God, and as we keep in the light as He is in the light, the decisions of the mind and the natural progress of the life go on like a law, and when the decision is likely to be wrong the Spirit checks. Whenever there is the tiniest inward check, we must stop, and we will find that the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfections will be there to meet every emergency.
In prayer have we learned the wonderful power of that phrase “. . . boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus”? It means that we can talk to God as Jesus Christ did, but only through the right of His Atonement. We must never allow the idea that because we have been obedient, because our need is great, because we long for it, therefore God will hear us. There is only one way into the holiest, and that is by the blood of Jesus. Being made partakers of the light means that we are taken into the fellowship Jesus referred to when He said, “the Father Himself loveth you.”
As we are made partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, we begin to understand that there is no division into sacred and secular, it is all one great glorious life with God as the Son of God is manifested in our mortal flesh. Paul puts it in this way: “When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me.” You in your shop, you in your office, you in your home, say that in your own heart—“The Son of God revealed in me!” That is sanctification.
4. Placed in the Light
And hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.
Just as the stars are poised by God Almighty, so the Apostle says the great power of the Father lifts the saints into the light that He and His Son are in, and poises them there, as eternally established as the stars. Have we ever allowed our imagination to be kindled by the light of God? God is Light, and He lifts us up in Himself, no matter who we are, and poises us as surely as He established the stars, in the very light that He is in. He makes us meet to be partakers of that wonderful inheritance, and slowly and surely the marvel of the life of the Son of God is manifested in our mortal flesh. No wonder Paul says—“Giving thanks unto the Father”!
It was never from His right to Himself that our Lord Jesus Christ spoke; He never thought from His right to Himself; that is, He never thought or spoke from His bodily conditions or the condition of His circumstances. We do talk from our right to ourselves, from the condition of our bodies, from our personal possessions; these are the things we all reason from naturally. They are the things the Son of God never reasoned from; He thought and spoke always from His Father; that is, He expressed the thought of God in light. When we are sanctified, the Spirit of God will enable us to do the same. As we go on with God we shall find that we see things in quite a different way, we see them with the eyes of Jesus Christ.
When we shut ourselves in alone with God at night, with the stars and the great quietness round about, it is so easy and so wonderful to talk to God; but do we walk in the light of the talk we had when the morning comes? Do we allow the Son of God to manifest Himself in our walk and conversation, or do we forget and begin to work from ourselves, and at the end of the day do we have to say to God—“I am sorry, Lord, but I made a tremendous blunder, I forgot to step back and let Thee manifest Thyself.”
Remember, God wants to lift us up and poise us in the light that He is in, and that everything that is dark just now will one day be as clear to us as it is to Him. Think of all the things that are dark just now. Jesus said, “There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed.” Things are dark and obscure to us because we are not in a right condition to understand them. Thank God for all that we have understood, for every bit of truth that is so full of light and liberty and wonder that it fills us with joy. Step by step as we walk in that light, and allow the Son of God to meet every circumstance by His virtues, by His power and His presence, we shall understand more and more with a knowledge “which passeth knowledge.”
How many of us know anything about this Gospel Mystery of Sanctification? Are we allowing the life and liberty and power and marvel of the holiness of Jesus Christ to be wrought out in us? Do we know what it is to be made new creatures in Christ Jesus? Have we let God raise us up to the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and are we learning to walk in the light as God is in the light?
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification.