Communion with God
By J. C. Philpot
Nothing distinguishes the divine religion of the child of
God, not only from the dead profanity of the openly ungodly, but from the
formal lip-service of the lifeless professor—so much as communion with
God.
How clearly do we see this exemplified in the saints of
old. Abel sought after fellowship with God when "he brought of the
firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof," for he looked to the
atoning blood of the Lamb of God. God accepted the offering, and "testified
of his gifts" by manifesting his divine approbation. Here was fellowship
between Abel and God. Enoch "walked with God;" but how can two walk together
except they be agreed? And if agreed, they are in fellowship and communion.
Abraham was "the friend of God;" "The Lord spoke to Moses face to face;"
David was "the man after God's own heart"—all which testimonies of the Holy
Spirit concerning them implied that they were reconciled, brought near, and
walked in holy communion with the Lord God Almighty.
So all the saints of old, whose sufferings and exploits
are recorded in Hebrews 11 lived a life of faith and prayer, a life of
fellowship and communion with their Father and their friend; and though
"they were stoned, sawn asunder, and slain with the sword;" though "they
wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted,
tormented;" though "they wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens
and caves of the earth," yet they all were sustained in their sufferings and
sorrows by the Spirit and grace, the presence and power of the living God,
with whom they held sweet communion; and, though tortured, would "accept no
deliverance," by denying their Lord, "that they might obtain a better
resurrection," and see him as he is in glory, by whose grace they were
brought into fellowship with him on earth.
This same communion with himself is that which God now
calls his saints unto, as we read, "God is faithful, by whom you were called
unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord," (1 Cor. 1:9,) for to
have fellowship with his Son is to have fellowship with him. As then he
called Abraham out of the land of the Chaldees, so he calls elect souls . .
.
out of the world,
out of darkness,
out of sin and death,
out of formality and self-righteousness,
out of a deceptive profession,
to have fellowship with Himself, to be blessed
with manifestations of His love and mercy.
To this point all his dealings with their souls tend to
bring them near to himself, all their afflictions, trials, and sorrows are
sent; and in giving them tastes of holy fellowship here, he grants them
foretastes of that eternity of bliss which will be theirs when time shall be
no more, in being forever swallowed up with his presence and love.
Even in the first awakenings of the Spirit, in the first
quickenings of his grace, there is that in the living soul which eternally
distinguishes it from all others, whatever be their profession, however high
or however low, however in doctrine sound or unsound, however in practice
consistent or inconsistent. There is, amid all its trouble, darkness, guilt,
confusion, and self-condemnation, a striving after communion with God;
though still ignorant of who or what he is, and still unable to approach him
with confidence. There is . . .
a sense of His greatness and glory;
a holy fear and godly awe of His great name;
a trembling at His word;
a brokenness,
a contrition,
a humility,
a simplicity,
a sincerity,
a self-abasement,
a distrust of self,
a dread of hypocrisy and self-deception,
a coming to the light,
a laboring to enter the strait gate,
a tenderness of conscience,
a sense of helplessness and inability,
a groaning under the guilt and burden of sin,
a quickness to see its workings, and an alarm
lest they should break forth--all which we never
see in a dead, carnal professor, whether the
highest Calvinist or the lowest Arminian.
In all these carnal professors, whatever their
creed or name, there is a hardness, a boldness, an ignorance, and a
self-confidence which chill and repel a child of God. Their religion has in
it no repentance and no faith—therefore no hatred of sin or fear of God. It
is a mere external, superficial form, springing out of a few natural
convictions, and attended with such false hopes and self-righteous
confidence as a Balaam might have from great gifts, or an Ahithophel from
great knowledge, or the Pharisee in the temple from great consistency, but
as different from a work of grace as heaven from earth.
How different from this is he who is made alive unto God.
His religion is one carried on between God and his own conscience, in the
depths of his soul, and, for the most part, amid much affliction and
temptation.
Being pressed down with a sight and sense of the dreadful
evil of sin, he at times dares hardly draw near to God, or utter a word
before the great and glorious majesty of heaven. And yet he is sometimes
driven and sometimes drawn to pour out his heart before him, and seek his
face night and day, besides more set seasons of prayer and supplication. And
yet this he cannot do without peculiar trial and temptation. If he stays
away from the throne, he is condemned in his own conscience as having no
religion, as being a poor, prayerless, careless wretch; if he come, he is at
times almost overwhelmed by a sight of the majesty and holiness of God, and
his open, dreadful sins against and before the eyes of his infinite purity.
If he is cold and dead, he views that as a mark of his own hypocrisy; if he
is enlarged, and feels holy liberty and blessed confidence spring up in his
soul, he can scarcely believe it real, and fears lest it be presumption, and
that Satan is now deceiving him as an angel of light; if he has a promise
applied, and is sweetly blessed for a time, he calls it afterwards all in
question; if favored under the word, to see his salvation clearly, he often
questions whether it were really of God; and if his mouth is opened to speak
to a Christian friend of any sweetness he has enjoyed, or any liberty that
he has felt, he is tried to the very quick, before an hour is gone over his
head, whether he has not been deceiving a child of God.
But by all these things living souls are instructed. The
emptiness of a mere profession, the deceitfulness of their own hearts, the
darkness, misery, and death that sin always brings in its train when
secretly indulged, the vanity of this poor, passing scene, the total
inability of the creature, whether in themselves or others, to give them any
real satisfaction, all become more thoroughly inwrought into their soul's
experience. And as they get glimpses and glances of the King in his beauty,
and see and feel more of his blessedness and suitability to all their wants
and woes; as his blood and righteousness, glorious person, and finished work
are more sensibly realized, believed in, looked unto, and reposed upon; and
as he himself is pleased to commune with them from the mercy-seat through
his word, Spirit, presence, and love, they begin to hold close and intimate
fellowship with him.
Every fresh view of his beauty and blessedness draws
their heart more towards him; and though they often slip, stumble, start
aside, wander away on the dark mountains, though often as cold as ice and
hard as rock—with no more feeling religion than the stones of the pavement,
and viler in their own feelings than the vilest and worst—still ever and
anon their stony heart relents, the tear of grief runs down their cheek,
their bosom heaves with godly sorrow, prayer and supplication go forth from
their lips, sin is confessed and mourned over, pardon is sought with many
cries, the blood of sprinkling is begged for, a word, a promise, a smile, a
look, a touch, are again and again besought, until body and soul are alike
exhausted with the earnestness of expressed desire.
O, how much is needed to bring the soul to its only Rest
and Center. What trials and afflictions; what furnaces, floods, rods, and
strokes, as well as smiles, promises, and gracious drawings! What pride and
self to be brought out of! What love and blood to be brought unto! What
lessons to learn of the freeness and fullness of salvation! What sinkings in
self! What risings in Christ! What guilt and condemnation on account of sin;
what self-loathing and self-abasement; what distrust of self; what fears of
falling; what prayers and desires to be kept; what clinging to Christ; what
looking up and unto his divine majesty, as faith views him at the right hand
of the Father; what desires never more to sin against him, but to live,
move, and act in the holy fear of God, do we find, more or less daily, in a
living soul!
And whence springs all this inward experience but from
the fellowship and communion which there is between Christ and the soul? "We
are members," says the Apostle, "of his body, of his flesh, and of his
bones." As such there is a mutual participation in sorrow and joy. "He has
borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." "He was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin." He can, therefore, "be touched with the
feelings of our infirmities," can pity and sympathize; and thus, as we
may cast upon him our sins and sorrows, when faith enables, so can he
supply, out of his own fullness, that grace and strength which can bring us
off eventually more than conquerors.
But here, for the present, we pause, having only just
touched the threshold of a subject so full of divine blessedness. Such a
subject as this, descending to all the depths of sin and sorrow, and rising
up to all the heights of grace and glory, embracing fellowship with Christ
in his sufferings and fellowship with Christ in his glory, is a theme for
Paul after he had been caught up into the third heaven, and for John in
Patmos, after he had seen him walking in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks; nor even could their divinely-taught souls adequately
comprehend, nor their divinely-inspired pens worthily describe all that is
contained in the solemn mystery of the communion that the Church, as the
Bride of the Lamb, is called to enjoy with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the
great and glorious Three-in-One God!