It is no question at all now, whether a man can stand in the day of judgment by a certain course of living.
We live under the revelation that he cannot; Christianity begins with that revelation. We cannot stand before God; all the world has become guilty.
The law put man on probation, but when Christ came, the full evil of man's heart was brought out; he crucified the Lord of glory. And now we get the deeper apprehension that we are not only guilty but lost; lost as a present state.
Guilt refers to the day of judgment, but there is, too, the actual condition. I am not only exposed to judgment but I am lost also.
Then at the cross, when man's sinfulness was fully proved, the love of God was shewn out in the accomplishment of the work of his salvation.
The whole question of good and evil, perfect evil in man and perfect goodness in God, all was brought out.
The consequence was that man has gone into the glory of God. Jesus Christ sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. That is where Christianity begins; it is with the full testimony of evil in man, and then I have another Man, who perfectly glorified God, and who is now glorified by God.
The mystery of the cross is this, that in that place where sin came out absolutely in full light before God, there, too, was the place of perfect obedience and full love towards God.
But, this being accomplished, "if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him," and the Son of man goes straight up into the glory of God.
There I get a new platform altogether, not with my responsibility in question, for on that ground I am lost as well as guilty; but there is a Man gone into the glory of God, so that I both know God in the perfectness of His love, and Man in the perfectness of God's righteousness. This is the starting point of Christianity; every thing is put on an entirely new basis.
Then at Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down, and His presence on earth is the consequence of Man in the glory of God. Every direct operation of God was by the Spirit; "By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens"; prophets spake by the Holy Ghost; demons were cast out by the Spirit of God; but all that is a very different thing from the Spirit's coming.
4 Christ made everything; but He did not come until the incarnation. He was there in one sense, but there was also a distinct personal coming.
So the Holy Ghost has now come, and He dwells in a believer, and becomes the power of Christianity and characterises the Christian himself.
We now stand between the Holy Ghost sent down and the full result in glory. "He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit," i.e., He has wrought us for the glory, and has given us the earnest of it. That is where the Christian stands, and he is thereby associated with Christ in heavenly glory.
How can I know that I have the Holy Ghost? Do you fancy that God dwells in me, and I shall not find it out?
may not be able to explain it, but that is another thing. We cannot have it without knowing it. You must have a knowledge of Scripture to explain it, but there will be a consciousness of the fact in one's self, and there will be true liberty, too.
But then the life of Jesus is to be manifested in me, and there I get my proper responsibility as a Christian.
Since Christ appears in the presence of God for us, we are to appear in the presence of the world for Christ.
If He dwells in you, then let us see Him in you.
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John Nelson Darby (1800 - 1882)
was an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, one of the influential figures among the original Plymouth Brethren and the founder of the Exclusive Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism and Futurism ("the Rapture" in the English vernacular). Pre-tribulation rapture theology was popularized extensively in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, and further popularized in the United States in the early 20th century by the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible.He produced a translation of the Bible based on the Hebrew and Greek texts called The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby. Darby traveled widely in Europe and Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, and established many Brethren assemblies. He gave 11 significant lectures in Geneva in 1840 on the hope of the church (L'attente actuelle de l'église). These established his reputation as a leading interpreter of biblical prophecy.
John Nelson Darby was an Anglo-Irish evangelist, and an influential figure among the original Plymouth Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism. He produced a translation of the Bible based on the Hebrew and Greek texts called The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby.
John Nelson Darby graduated Trinity College, Dublin, in 1819 and was called to the Irish bar about 1825; but soon gave up law practice, took orders, and served a curacy in Wicklow until, in 1827, doubts as to the Scriptural authority for church establishments led him to leave the institutional church altogether and meet with a company of like-minded persons in Dublin.
Darby traveled widely in Europe and Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, and established many Brethren assemblies. These established his reputation as a leading interpreter of biblical prophecy. He was also a Bible Commentator. He declined however to contribute to the compilation of the Revised Version of the King James Bible.