by

A. J. Gardiner (1884 - c. 1972)

THE MINISTRY OF MR. F. E. RAVEN, 1890.
J. B. Stoney Letters.

I have the feeling that I cannot be of much help to any one in the present contention who does not understand the truth as revealed in the scripture. I do not think any book can help you if you do not learn it from the word of God, and once you know it as of God no book can disturb you, though it may grieve you. Death is on the first man. Death the judgment of God because of sin—death is first annulled, and then life and incorruptibility are brought to light by the gospel. It is at the other side of death that I enjoy the life of Him who bore death for me, so that you pass out of death into life; John 5:24. The clearer you are that He has in His death set aside all in you under the judgment of death, the easier it will be for you to know that you are in His life. Hence there are three witnesses to prove to you that you have eternal life, “the Spirit, the water, and the blood.” (1) The Spirit dwelling in you; (2) the water—Christ’s death where you are cleared away, or purification through His death; (3) the blood—expiation by death. You must eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, not merely believe that He died for you, but feed on His death, and thus you are freed from the death on you—the wages of sin, and you receive of His life. He was raised from the dead before He breathed on His disciples. Eternal life is (as Mr. D— says) “outside the senses,” an

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“out-of-the-world condition of things.” It is given to every believer, but no one enjoys it but as Christ liveth in him. The pious in Christendom regard eternal life as the assurance that your immortal soul will be happy in heaven. The Puritans and Calvinists consider it to be final perseverance. Many who are supposed to be well taught Christians build their happiness on God’s promise of a perpetuity of life! In no case is the idea of Christ being our life apprehended; and the acceptance of eternal life as it is revealed involves an entirely new order of being and relationship. It is the unwillingness to accept the new and heavenly order, which is at the bottom of the opposition.

J.B.S.

As to the contention about eternal life, the mistake is that the work is overlooked for the gift. It is very plain that Christ did not give eternal life until after the work was accomplished. It is as risen from the dead—the last Adam (see John 17:2)—that He gives eternal life. What “feeble souls” want to accept is the work of Christ. The gift of eternal life was never used, that I know of, to establish souls. “It is a good thing if the heart be established by grace.” “He that stablisheth you is God.” The more I hear, the more I am assured that “feeble souls” are damaged by presenting to them the gift—the actual testimony to the last Adam, instead of the work of Christ by which He obtained the position. The idea is that if a question be raised as to whether any one is enjoying the result of the work, that you are thereby invalidating the work. Evidently if the work be truly known the result is known. John’s great desire was that the saints might have conscious knowledge of eternal life. Did he thereby invalidate or depreciate the work? If I tell a man—when there is good light you will see a certain object, am I calling in question

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that he has eyes, or am I calling his attention to the result of his having eyes? I am convinced that those who reason this way are not clear as to having died with Christ, “for if we be dead with him, we believe that we shall also live with him.” “Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” I see that I must in ministry dwell more on the work—the death and resurrection of Christ—for that is what souls want to be established in. Every one who is consciously in His life knows and enjoys Him in glory.

Some say that the “babe can delight in eternal life” before he has learnt the setting aside of the old man. This is really —'s doctrine. He says eternal life can be given before man is set aside in the cross, and here the doctrine is that eternal life can be delighted in before the setting aside of the first man is learnt. I say that is impossible. The whole point of John 3 is that life is connected with faith in the Son of man lifted up. What is the value of the second witness, “the water” (see 1 John 5) if the eternal life could be delighted in while purification by the death of Christ is unknown? If the setting aside of the first man has not been learnt, the sense of sin presses on me, and if it does, how can I delight in eternal life? There is a great difference in delighting in the service of the Saviour in putting away my sins, and in being in the sense of His life outside the scene of sin and death. The divine order is, “Reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.” The abolishing of death precedes the bringing to light life and incorruptibility by the gospel. This teaching accounts for and fosters all the earthly ways tolerated nowadays, for in it you gain everything through Christ, and you part with nothing. Be assured that it is the other way. You must part with your own clothes before you take up the mantle of Elijah. Christ in glory is my life. How could I

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know a glorified Christ, the only Christ to be known now, the Christ whom “the fathers” know, but as I am, through the Spirit, apart from and outside of all of that man who dishonoured God, and is at a distance from Him. You cannot eat the old corn of the land without crossing the Jordan.

J.B.S.

There is much to cheer, though I have been sad at heart to think of the condition of soul which could be so influenced.... If I am not very much mistaken, there underlies the teaching fundamental error. What does the “Personality of eternal life” mean? What does it mean that our Lord “gave up eternal life when He died”? Is conversion by my acceptance of grace, as Moody taught, or by the sovereign, absolute work of God which opens my eyes? To live as Christ lived as seen of men, is all that is accepted, without apprehending that all the time He, in unbroken communion with the Father, was living in a life which could not be seen of men. So with us. If Christ liveth in me in the detail of my life down here, He is also at the very time my life in the presence of the Father, and the moment I realise that I belong to the divine circle I am enjoying Christ’s life. I want Him at every step here, and He does not merely give me grace for my need down here, but as He is ever higher than the heavens, He leads me to the height where He is, if there be no reserve between me and Him. If there is reserve, I have not “part” with Him consciously, though I may be sensibly helped, as in the Psalms, where it is not the heavenly man, but the earthly man helped down here.

J.B.S.

A dear simple soul said to me, I prefer to share in Christ’s life than to have a life given to myself. As Christ is my life, and as I am of Christ I can never

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lose it. Nothing of Christ could perish. It distresses me to hear discussions about so great a thing as eternal life before there has been a waiting on the Lord to apprehend the nature of the gift. People turn to some or other writings to learn what it is instead of just learning what it is on one’s knees and through the light of the word.... Eternal life is not a person, but the power to enjoy what a person is. This is simple. We enjoy it in Christ and by His Spirit. It is very cheering to be here, they are so clear and stedfast. The Lord lead you here some time—about a hundred brothers in the meeting.

J.B.S.

I return the copy of your letter. I like it very much. I have seen for some time that there was a tendency with brethren to make every movement of our Lord’s here an expression of eternal life. It is a refuge to the conscience of those who do not enjoy it in its own sphere to reduce it to the details of man’s life. But eternal life is outside the senses—an out-of-the-world condition. Surely in everything, as you rightly say, we learn and derive from our Lord to act here in the smallest details in a way and in a spirit quite new and unknown to man. The manna is the beautiful divine touch in everything—even the commonest; but it is a device of the enemy to induce me to relieve my conscience of ignorance of my birthright (communion with the Father) by substituting for it * that which cannot be known but outside this scene altogether, and which is not merely my behaviour and manner of life among men. This device must be resisted, and I am glad to say that some are delivered from it. I remark that those who are seeking to advance in the world are petulant and

* This should apparently read “by substituting it” (i.e. the manna) “for that which cannot be known, etc.”—Ed.

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irritated when truth is presented which they evidently are not enjoying, and in their desire for spiritual reputation they cannot afford to admit that they are not enjoying it. I do not believe that any one advancing in this world and not surrendering it can be seeking the things above....

J.B.S.

I am not surprised that you should be depressed by the contention which prevails amongst us. I find that the only true way is to be assured first from the Word what eternal life is, and when you are assured divinely of what it is and what it confers, then you will be proof against all perversions and misrepresentations.

It is said that a clerk in a bank first learns what a good banknote is, that he is kept in a room where the banknotes are until he knows a good one, and then when any note which is not good is presented to him he knows it to be bad.

I do not believe that any one apprehending the greatness and blessedness of eternal life could fail to see where the truth lies at the present time. Some do not see any unsoundness in the teaching itself who do not enter into the positive side, that is, the greatness and joy of it. These latter, though they do not actually oppose, do not help. The one seeking to have a conscious knowledge of having it (which is the object of John’s first epistle, as he says, “These things I write unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life”) is sure to be a help. The very fact that eternal life is outside of my senses—“To God I am beside myself”—is enough to shew me that it must be opposed or evaded because it is, as Mr. Darby says, “an out-of-the-world condition of things.” Every one who has a heart like Peter (Matt. 14) would leave the ship (what suits man) to join the Lord in His own life outside and apart from all that refused Him here. Christians, as a rule, do not seek

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it. Paul says to Timothy, “Lay hold on eternal life,” though it was his all the time. Grace has given me much more than I yet enjoy or have appropriated. The Lord grant that you may appropriate and enjoy it.

J.B.S.

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F.E.R./C.A.C. Letters

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