Dependence, Communion, and Hope

H. H. Snell
Psalm 16PSA 16
It is when the soul enters upon and takes possession of its new standing and relationships, as in Christ Jesus in heavenly places, that it necessarily becomes exercised as to the character of its walk down here. The reason is this. As long as the true believer finds all his need met by the cross as to sin and guilt, the question of walk is mainly as to morality, or propriety, and consistency in the world. But when he learns through the teaching of the Holy Spirit that the cross of Christ also declares the complete end of the first man, the Adam nature as put under the judgment of God, he has a different exercise of soul. He discovers also that the world in rejecting the Son of God had its doom sealed. All resources thus being cut off by the judgment of God in the cross, both as to man and the world, his confession is that he has no confidence in the flesh, and that he is not of the world.
All this becomes more and more real as he is able to see that in a risen and ascended Christ, God in His grace has given him righteousness, life, and completeness before Him. He not only sees, but enters upon and enjoys it in the presence of God. The conscience then becomes exercised about a walk down here suited to Him up there—a walk, not in the flesh, nor according to this present evil age, but suited to the calling and standing given us in Christ. This life and course will be fed and strengthened by Him in heaven, in whom God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. The walk now will be in the Spirit, and the life one of faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. It will, therefore, be characterized by dependence, communion, and hope, which three points are blessedly brought out in Psa. 16.
This psalm sets forth some of the perfect ways of our blessed Lord in passing through this scene. It is sweet to see that in it there was one object for His heart's delight. It is His saints in whom was all His delight. These, too, He distinguished from the apostate people who were hastening after another god. And if His heart's affections flowed out so blessedly to the faithful little remnant in Israel, what must be His heart's love now to us who are "members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones"?
Taking everything as He did from the hand of His God and Father, and walking always in the perfect sense of obedience to the will of Him that sent Him, He could say, "The lines are fallen unto Me in pleasant places." And no doubt the great secret of our going through this world in the enjoyment of the peace of God is walking in the path of obedience, and taking everything, painful or pleasant, from the hands of our gracious God and Father.