Knowing the Son of Man

How different it would be in God’s church in our sad days of estrangement if we with the sick of the palsy might be privileged to experimentally take that place. Then more breaking-through work would be perceived and heard of, whereas we now so often remain in the childbirth and seek our ground in the benefits and in our feelings. Today it seems as if many can be saved without Jesus, and there is no growth in grace and in the knowledge of Him. We must continually implore the ministration of God’s Spirit so that we may examine and investigate whether God’s work is magnified in us, for there can be no rest outside of Christ. God’s people can often see much in Him and may exclaim with Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” but still miss Him in the appropriation of faith as their Surety and Mediator. Thus, they miss immediate liberation. Although the Lord is free in the application of this matter, truly concerned people of God look forward to liberation, and He which hath begun a good work in them will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

The man sick of the palsy and salvation-seeking people may, through God’s grace, experience this. The Lord said to him, “I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house.” Two benefits are glorified unto this man—the forgiveness of sins and the restoration from his palsy—and he could return free into his house. God’s people in regeneration are, from God’s side, brought into the state of reconciliation and are declared free in Christ, but the application and appropriation of faith is continually necessary for the salvation-seeking one in order to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made him free. This can be enjoyed in the condition of our life under the covering righteousness of Christ. Then the guilt lies covered, but in the state of our life, this occurs before the tribunal of God’s judgment when the sinner is cut off from everything. Then, as a lost sinner we are acquitted from guilt and sin, and we receive from the Judge, upon the ground of Christ’s merits, a right unto eternal life. We are free from guilt and sin, restored unto the Father through Christ, and reconciled with a Triune God to extol and praise Him with the psalmist: “The Lord sustains thee and has dealt most graciously with thee.”

In the exercises of faith, these people become a dependent people, a people who daily must live from that which is granted. Grace does not make great people, for they cannot live out of their justification. They also must continually be brought to the feet of the Lord Jesus to be ministered through Him and out of Him. Then we do not look down upon the concerned church, but there we meet each other in the Lord and at the throne of grace. We are sometimes so rich with our experiences that we see no value in Christ’s work as Surety. We are great and converted people, dry and barren; no scent or taste emanates anymore from God’s people.

May the want of Him yet be bound upon us and become a binding matter in our life. May the north wind of the Spirit blow upon the garden of His Church so that there may be found many sick of the palsy. The Lord can do wonders to manifest His guilt-forgiving love and to cause those sick of the palsy to walk in liberty and not be silent about the good which the Lord has done. They will praise Him in their life and sing psalms unto God while they are yet alive. One day they will go home to be with the one sick of the palsy forever and ever, to that place where there shall be no more palsy. There they will be privileged to eternally sing the song of the redeemed: “Thou hast redeemed us unto God by Thy blood.” Amen.

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