A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS

RIGHTEOUSNESS: We have had some good conversation some time ago, about Christ as the great Redeemer. It certainly is a favoured soul, which has received this Savior as the great gift of the Father, and can find Him in soul-experience from beginning to end as the Alpha and Omega.

Quickened souls, and they only, will hunger and thirst after Christ and His righteousness, that in this perfect righteousness they may be righteous before a holy God and be delivered from their burden of sin, curse and fears.

When God will justify a sinner, He will actually say, “Come now, and let us reason together (both God, and the sinner by faith, looking upon Christ and His righteousness) saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

Truth: I am glad, dear Friend, you touch this subject once more, namely, that we find Christ as a great Redeemer of a sinner in justification. When he passes through this experience, this passage is confirmed, “Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.” It was the language of a converted soul,

When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see—
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.

My terrors all vanished before the sweet Name;
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free—
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.”

Right.: It is no wonder, that such a blessed soul is very happy and thankful. We find David exclaiming, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will offer to Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the Name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people. In the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord.”

Truth: I suppose you do remember, that we would now further consider how Christ delivers His people of “all iniquities.”

If we read the 7th chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Romans, we find that, although Jesus had delivered him of iniquities in the new birth and in justification, he was not yet delivered of all iniquity. After glorious deliverances of sin, he wrote, “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

This is the experience of all those that have been justified by faith in Christ Jesus, and have been reconciled with God. Sin or iniquity may be forgiven, and for some time it may have seemed that they would never be troubled with these soul-enemies anymore, but how disappointed! They may be dead to sin, but sin is not dead in them. Sin revived in Paul. They do not only learn to know the guilt of sin, but also their deep depravity and the pollution of sin.

Right: I am glad to know that Christ also delivers of this iniquity more or less in sanctification. Although not delivered perfectly of this depravity and pollution in this life, sanctification is a continual deliverance of iniquity.

This sanctification begins with the spiritual birth and will continue as long as a child of God will remain in this worldly desert. The Spirit of God is in him a Spirit of sanctification. The barren tree becomes fruitful. The heart is renewed and sanctified. There is a new creature in Christ Jesus. What a change is wrought by Word and Spirit! Strong convictions of sin are in the heart. Sin is known as a dreadful, God-dishonoring, and soul-destroying evil. O, sin in the deepest sense of the word is—murder. The soul is loosened from sin, begins to hate and loathe sin, fight against it in Jesus strength, yes, will crucify sin, that it may have no longer dominion over him.

The Spirit of Christ will exercise a sanctifying power over understanding, judgment, will, and all the passions of the mind. Thoughts, words, and deeds, are under this sanctifying power. This work will continue more or less till the hour of death; and what has been said, makes it very clear unto us, that sanctification is deliverance of iniquity.

A child of God is not passive in this work, but active. Only in coming to Christ by faith and abiding in Him, may a poor, helpless and unclean sinner, exercise that true and evangelic sanctification. Jesus Himself has said, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.”

This passage may also be applied here, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”

Truth: What you have said, dear Friend, has more established the truth in me.

I also find the love and fear of God in a pilgrim journeying on the narrow heavenly way. He loves God and His holy will. It is his desire, to deny his own will and sinful lusts. He wants to become conform the image of God’s Son more and more. Fearing God, he will shun evil, as the Lord Himself said concerning Job (Job. 1:8). The love and fear of God is a strong motive for sanctification. There will then be a hatred against all sin, a strong desire to overcome it, and to become sinless in glorification.

There is a daily stumbling in thoughts, words, and deeds, as James has said, but this spiritual warrior is firmly resolved to continue in the service of God by His grace, and not give up spiritual warfare against sin and iniquity. When overcome and discouraged, broken-hearted and in sorrow, the heavenly Captain Christ Jesus, will strengthen faith, revive hope, and increase love. He will prove to be a present help.

Jesus delivers of iniquity in sanctification; His blood and Spirit cleanseth from all sin.

Right.: It has been my opinion, that Christ delivers of iniquities in sanctification, but then in more than one way. I have looked upon many a dear child of God which was constrained to bear a heavy cross under the chastening rod of God. Is this rod and cross not sanctifying and delivering of sin?

Truth: Your opinion is Scriptural, Friend Righteousness. It has been the experience of every child of God, that rod and cross, which two can not be separated, are sanctifying and also delivering of iniquity. It is a painful deliverance by Jesus’ hand, but a good one. Not one of them can boast that they are such good children that will always obey and never need the rod.

Bastards, hypocrites, pharisees, etc., may boast that they are good, but they are no children at all. They may call themselves the children of God, but they had no spiritual birth and adoption, how can they be children?

Although painful, the child of God will thank God with his whole heart at times, for the chastening rod and the cross. I may confirm all what was said concerning this point, with the encouraging words of Paul as we find them in Hebrew 12: “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

Right.: I was now thinking about the furnace of trials. We find in our Bible, that the Lord has not only a rod, but also a furnace and fire to sanctify His dear ones and deliver them of iniquity. I know that in that furnace the bands of sin and carnality are consumed as the bands that had tied the three friends of Daniel together were consumed when in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar.

The prophet Malachi has prophesied a sin-delivering Christ in His furnace: “And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.”

Although Job was a very godly man, he must needs go in the furnace of trials. Was it good for Job? Let us consider what he said when the Lord led him out of it: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Truth: Considering our conversation, I must say, this is Christ in sanctification, and this will lead to deliverance of iniquity as proved. Poor creatures that have, as Paul before his conversion, nothing but legal works or righteousness. It is all legal bondage, wherein we find not the least trace of a living Christ and a deliverance of iniquities.

Let us conclude with the following prayer of a now glorified saint:

“Yet one thing we want. Lord, more holiness grant,
For more of Thy mind and Thy likeness we pant;
Thy image impress on Thy favorite race,
Oh, fashion and polish Thy vessels of Grace!

All this shall be done, ’tis already begun,
From conq’ring to conquer Thou yet wilt go on,
In us, when we die, then Thy grace from on high
Will the finishing Hand to Thy image apply.”

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