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T h e K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
May 1932
by faith in Him putting away from the holy eyes of God our guiltiness. A well-known type of this meaning in the expression was also the blood-stained covering of the ark, coming between the presence of a holy God, signified by the Shekinah, and the law written upon stone within the ark, which the guilty race had broken. Are we ever putting on Christ for the cleansing of guilt, and for our clothing about in the righteousness of Jesus? 'T n another sense , the believers must be arrayed in -®- Christ. As the garments of the high priest were given to him for “ glory and beauty,” so is the Lord Jesus as the court dress for us, wherein we can stand before the King of heaven with assurance. “ Having therefore boldness to enter into, the holiest by the blood of Christ . . . let us draw nigh.” “ Put ye on” with the hand of faith “ the Lord Jesus,” both for covering and ornament.. But man’s eyes are upon us as well as God’s. To “ put on the Lord Jesus” before our fellows is to be clothed with the same character as distinguished Him. Writing to the Philippians, Paul says, “ Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” The three peculiar attributes in Christ’s earthly life were submission to His Father’s will, humility of soul, and self-sacrificing love. To “ put on the Lord Jesus” is to exhibit all these. It is to be able to say to God, as Christ said in prophecy, “ I delight to. do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.” It is to assume the same lowliness o f heart which distinguished Him. “ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart.” And it is to live for others, however costly the self-sacrifice. Let us “ put on the Lord Jesus,” in all we know of His obedience to His Father, meekness, and sacrificial love for men. But we cannot help looking on ourselves, even as cer tainly as we are seen by the eyes of God, and the eyes of our fellows. When we shrink from trial, whether loss or sickness, whether criticism or persecution, whatever dis comfort may fall upon us, the claiming afresh of Christ makes Him to be as a covering, protecting us from wind and storm. Spurgeon was never tired of telling of the aged and poverty-stricken saint who, over a crust of bread and a cup of weak tea, was heard to say: “ What! all this, and Christ too/" As our wearing apparel keeps us warm, so is Christ our defense from the ills of life that might other wise perturb and perplex us. F rom W eakness to P ower ut another pair of eyes is watching us with malicious gaze. Would we protect ourselves from Satan’s accu sations? We must “ put on the Lord Jesus” to come be tween the evil one and our souls. Would we, on the other hand, become aggressors, and seek to take the spoil of hu man souls from the grasp of Satan? We must again “ put on the Lord Jesus,” as the armor in which we go to the holy war. Thus will our faults and our weakness be changed to power by the “ armor of light,” even by our Lord Himself. There is indeed a holy joy in the exhortation to “ put on the Lord Jesus.” Our clothes are with us wherever we may be, at home or abroad, sitting or walking, work ing or playing; we carry our garments with us. How pre- cious to think that we may consider Christ as associated with us as closely as the things we wear. As we assume our clothing early in the day, and our garments are worn till taken off at night, the hand o f faith may take Christ as our spiritual raiment and be prepared to live joyfully beneath the glances of a holy God, a critizing world, a keen conscience, and a malicious foe. “ Put ye on the Lord Jesus.”
either lying or stealing, but they will take God’s name in vain, by sweariag when angry. It is all sin, no matter what color it may be. The next fluid is different in color from each of the others. [Add water.] It, too, looks perfectly harmless, but we shall wait and see the color change. You will no tice that it has nothing to do with the two other fluids. It considers itself too good to associate with them. I will drop some of this black fluid (ink) into the bottle. It goes immediately to the clear fluid making it blue. It has no affect on either the bottom or top fluids. Many unsaved people consider themselves righteous because certain sins do not affect them. Dancing has no affect on them. They do not care for gambling. But the devil knows what will affect them, and sooner or later, it will come and blacken their lives, just as these drops have discolored the fluid in the middle of the bottle. While different people have different sins, yet: “ All have sinned and come short of the glory of God; there is none righteous, no not one.” “ The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son cleanseth from ALL sin.” Did you notice the verse which I just quoted said ALL sins are cleansed by the blood of Christ? If I shake the bottle, the fluids will soon settle back into their original positions. Shaking people will not take sin out of their heart. There is just one way to get rid of sin, and that is through faith in the cleansing blood of Christ. I will roll the bottle up in this red cloth. [Roll in scroll fashion. The duplicate bottle, filled with oil is concealed in the cloth.] As I roll the bottle in the red cloth, we will sing: “ What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” [When the first bottle has been rolled part way into the red, the positions o f the bottles can be exchanged by a slight movement o f the thumb.] When we trust Christ to cleanse from sin, our lives are filled with the Spirit of God, just as this bottle is filled with pure oil. Sin leaves, and the Spirit of God fills the heart. Putting on the Lord Jesus By W illiam O lney in The Life o f Faith ^ he thirteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is characterized toward the close by the reminders of every day duties, and then comes the mystic teaching in the midst o f them: “ Put ye on the Lord Jesus” (v. 14). The lesson upon the surface of this apparent contrast in teaching is that the root of the daily Christian life is to be found in believing contact with the Saviour. The branches* of the tree of Christian living stretch out in all directions, and their fruit is to be found in the church, the home, the school, and the shop; but the root of the tree is discovered in the quiet hours of fellowship with the Lord. F our P airs of E yes How is the exhortation to “ put on the Lord Jesus” to be explained? To begin with, it is necessary to remember that four pairs of eyes are always watching the follower o f the Saviour: God’s eyes, man’s eyes, our own eyes, and the eyes of the evil one. To bear these fourfold spectators in mind will make the wearing of Christ easier to understand. God’s eyes are upon us. It was from those holy eyes that the sinners in Eden, Adam and Eve, sought to hide the nakedness of which they had become conscious through their sin; and it was the divine mercy that provided them “ garments o f skins.” In other words, through the shedding of blood—a type of the cleansing blood which was offered on Calvary—a covering was provided for guilt and shame. In this sense, therefore, are we to “ put on the Lord Jesus,”
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