Standing and Experience

But while the ground of the believer’s peace with God is unchangeable, it is evident that those who are born of God will have a very different experience from what they could possibly have known before. And it is just here that soul-trouble often comes in; not so much from outward circumstances (though there may be that too), but from what they now discover in themselves. This so occupies their minds, that until they know that deliverance has been wrought for them in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as peace made, they cannot cease from self-occupation. They recognize that there is working within them that which they know to be totally opposed to the holiness of God. Moreover, they resolve and make efforts to overcome this bad self; but, learning their helplessness either to improve self or to overcome self, they are obliged at last to give it up, and cry out for a Deliverer. All this is experience; and let it be again noticed that these humbling and painful lessons as to what we are “in the flesh” and “under law” are turned to good account, so that we may enjoy the deliverance which God in infinite grace has entitled us to have. And this deliverance is through the redemption work of His own Son, by which we are set in a totally new place before Him in Christ in cloudless and changeless favour. If it be a question of peace with God, it is “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” If it be how we have deliverance from sinful self and the law, it is “through Jesus Christ our Lord,” with a new life in the Spirit in Him risen, so that henceforth we are “not in the flesh,” but “in Christ Jesus.”
Before looking into the teaching of Scripture as to our deliverance, from “the law of sin and death,” it is important that we should distinguish the Christian’s standing from his own experience. Our peace and also our standing in Christ are wholly of God, and we have the comfort of both on simply believing God’s testimony concerning His own Son. This calls out our hearts in praise and worship. When we have not the realized blessedness of these things, it is because we are taken up with our own thoughts, and have let go God’s word about peace and standing; for we have “joy and peace in believing.”
But experience is another thing. Here self, reasonings, unbelieving thoughts, and even Satan may come in, and this is why a soul who is unduly taken up with experience is never a bright and joyous Christian. Some one said, “I have never known a person reason himself into peace with God; but I have known many who have reasoned themselves out of it; The truth is that the experience of every Christian is sometimes bright and sometimes dark. We often change, but God changeth not. His word is forever settled in heaven; and Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to- day, and for ever. Look at Paul; as to his peace and standing it was wholly of God, and through Christ and in Christ; but as to experience, he was at one time in unspeakable delight in the third heavens, and shortly after buffeted by a messenger of Satan on earth in indescribable humiliation and distress. But though his experience so changed, his standing and true ground of peace were entirely unaltered. Was he more in Christ when in the third heavens than when under such an attack of Satan on earth? Was Paul less secure in Christ when humbled and tempted by Satan’s messenger than when in the third heavens? Certainly not. Let us not fail then to hold with strong confidence that which nothing can shake or alter — the ground of our peace and standing in Christ Jesus; for it is wholly of God. Our experience may be joyous one day or hour, and very distressing the next. Children of God therefore are not called to live upon their experience (happy, indeed, as it sometimes is, and when otherwise, often turned to profit), but to live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us. Happy those who can say —
“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, God’s righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.”