Ephesians. 6:13,14

One remark I would make as to the quiet way in which the apostle assumes it is all right in the hearts of these Ephesians.
He had drawn a striking picture of how God, to please Himself, spontaneously from His own heart, had come in and taken up a people out of a state of devil-possession, had revealed Himself, and made them Members of Christ, His Son at His right hand, the Head in heaven. Last time I was looking at the position taken by God down here, Jesus of Nazareth being up there at His right hand, as the Head in heaven. He has the answer down here in a people who know His name, and who have to make good a certain position according to it, in spite of all Satan can do.
Think, dear friends, what grace! God in heaven making good in you a position by the Holy Ghost, answering to that of His Son in heaven. Grace, for height and depth beyond the creature, reaching to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Grace, which comes down to us under all our ruin, even when we were " dead in trespasses and sins," rolled about by Satan as the withered leaf is tossed by the wind in autumn-those whom he had in his possession.
Who are you, that in you God should make good this answer? Yet to us He says: You are the proof to Satan, and to the world, that my Son is sitting on high as the Head; and this is the position in which you have got to stand.
How quietly the apostle assumes, as I was saying, that the tone of their hearts was right, as well as that they were ready to live to Him who " died and rose." There is no stirring them up-no pleading with them to take the position he was putting before them; they are in it. How different the people of God are now! we see them having a thousand objects but the one the Holy Ghost would cause' to thrill in us. How ashamed we should be when we see what is around us, and then look closer home, and find our houses unpurged, our heart unjudged, and He still having to say to us as members of that living Head!
He speaks here not of motives but of position. He supposes the soul to have a character suited to that of sons of such a Father-of vessels sealed by the Spirit, and filled with the Spirit. How different the church of God was to what it is! They had a single eye-one object-seeking in everything Christ's glory-light bearers in the world. And what decrepitude in us! how it shames us!
With regard to this armor for the church militant, whose soldiers are you?—God's?—And what for? Pleasure? or conflict? And how far are your hearts interested in the conflict? Are you only taking it because "no cross, no crown?" or has it taken hold of your hearts as the spring of your Souls?
" Her seed shall bruise thy head."-How far are you counting that all connected with Satan is shortly to be bruised? But nothing connected with the Son of God shall be bruised; He will not let you be, because you are connected with His fortune. How far does that tell on your hearts?
Then with regard to this conflict, is it forever? No! there is a time when rest will come: " They shall learn war no more." There will be a happy end to it all, but now we are learning to endure. And, as to the service whilst we are in it, what provision has Christ made for us?—This brings us to the armor.
" Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth."-Do you know the value of a girdle in regulating and increasing strength? As Christians we cannot do without the girdle; it tells home upon us, and speaks much of the grace we have to do with. Truth is the girdle it comes searchingly home, it surrounds us. Have you a clear idea of what it is? Can you put it into other words so as to satisfy yourself? There are certain things true to God's mind, and certain things which are not true. His word tells us this. If you have his word close round about you, you will find it uncommonly searching.
The eye of Christ was always on God's word. When Satan came to Him, He could say: That is not truth. I am bound to what is truth.-Satan tried to misapply truth, and what is misapplied is not truth. It was not that Satan could not quote Scripture; he did; but he applied it to Christ, not as One going down, down, down-as the Servant come to do His Father's will-but as thinking of Himself and not God. Truth was the girdle to Him, and He had power to endure. What a contrast in Peter: " Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee." He was not a Nazarite-his heart filled with a single desire; with him it was not always the thought: Where is my God in this thing? So there was weakness.
I believe if this were entered into more in our own souls, it would explain much as to our failure in walk. There is such a thing as the truth of God-God's thoughts about you-coming down into your very circumstances, which, if applied to you where you are, will be the strength of the Nazarite to you, and, while faithful to Him who has separate you, none shall be able to bind you. It will be ever with you: Lo, I come to do thy will.”
The thought I have about the girdle is not that it is merely truth in contrast with error—God's truth about Christ, and the like; but it is truth coming down to me here, and encircling me right round where I am in my Circumstances. "People are often astonished at what happens to them-borne down where they expected to stand.
When I look back, I see that I have not had the experience of Paul " in all things more than conquerors," if I have not had the girdle on. I should avow it. Perhaps I was a soldier for myself, and not for Christ. Perhaps I have had a girdle on o not the girdle of truth.
How far I ask you is your eye single? The single eye is that which sees God as He is. None but Christ did that perfectly. Many saints who have heard about the grace of God, and can confess that they are the chief of sinners, yet, when you get to their hearts, you do not find mercy and grace there, and the knowledge of God and His Son Jesus Christ, as you should expect to find it. It is a very solemn thing to see how imagination may dress up and play with truth; the mind filled with fantasies, instead of the heart being in the dust before God, bowed down in His presence, and tasting, as individuals, mercy and grace.
Do you know God for yourself? As you familiarized with God in Christ-that Christ who is the model God looks at Himself, and has given to you? Has God looked into your heart in power show you Christ, in whom is all His delight, as the One into whose likeness He would have you molded? He has seen loathsome, creeping things in there, and He has made you to see what you had no idea of. Christ is to be there, instead of everything else, in the end; but you will see at first how mercy alone suits you. If you do not see what a horrid black thing you are in contrast with Christ, you have no true thought about God's mercy, and should not take the place of a soldier, but 'go and look for " the girdle of truth." You must have it quickening and taking hold of your heart, or you will not be able to take the place of one fighting the good fight of faith.
" And having on the breastplate of righteousness."-I know not how better to take this up than by contradicting two errors. The Protestant error, in connection with justification by faith, has been to make the righteousness of Christ applied to a person who has been previously occupied with Christ-imputed righteousness. This is untrue. The Romanist says there is no such a thing as imputed righteousness. The Protestant would establish some ground for Christ's favor by his own happy feelings and so on; and, when these are gone, the whole process has to be gone through again of getting his soul into that state once more. He only sees imputed righteousness, and not imparted; and this error has arisen in answer to the Roman Catholic notion of imparted righteousness only, with no imputed righteousness. These say, when you have overcome all the evil in you, God will give you the benefit of imparted righteousness.
But the breastplate is not according to either of these views. It is something covering the front of the person all over, and protecting it. Is it that a certain power has come inside me, and will in the end cast out all evil?. No, it is more than this. The Christ that spake to Saul, took him up, and made him one with Himself; Christ's life throbbed now in Saul. The members here are in vital union with Christ the Head, and this union links them up in one life.
Where do I begin when I talk of righteousness? With God. I say: It was righteous of God to raise Christ from the dead, and thus to vindicate Him as worthy of all glory; it was righteous of God to show out what the world was, to show out the impotency of Satan, and to show out what He Himself was too, by raising Christ from the dead and putting Him there on the throne of God, everything put into His hands by right and title. " Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." Here is the perfectness of righteousness.
" If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us' our sins;" there is value in the blood to put them away. But there is more than that. He has stores of righteousness in that One up there, which He could throw over the sinner. But He does more than that. He makes the pardoned sinner one with that Christ-with that righteous One. God looks at us not in ourselves, but in Christ; and thus the righteousness I have is perfect; it is " the righteousness of God."
The tempest tossed conscience, knowing its feelings about sin, but not seeing the full measuring out of its guilt on Christ, needs to see the question of sin forever settled-needs to see it as connected with the great plan of God. The foundation is Christ. The separate stones do not give the value to the building; it is the temple as a whole, and the foundation on which it stands. The righteousness of God, who "when we were dead in sins, quickened us together with Christ." Different this, to the thought of a white robe thrown over me.
It is not my mind at work on God's truth it is God's truth at work on my mind. If you have the unction from the Holy One, you need to look to God to have His truth so brought home to you. A person may be holding truth himself, instead of having it as a girdle round him. There is all the difference possible in our grasping at truth, and truth holding us.
The righteousness we have is not only imputed, which gives the idea of something thrown down to me from a distance, but it is mine by the power of a life communicated. Life is there; the seal of the Spirit is there. To be without any power but my own would be agony; for then all the purposes of my heart, must be found, like Peter's, to be insufficient. God must keep all, as well as lay the foundation. The Spirit of God teaches me, that it is the righteousness in life of a Christ who has died and is risen. Christians want quietness, but it must be quietness of life of resurrection life. I would rather be a poor, dark, uninstructed one living on Christ, than have all the blaze of truth without Him. The one who has intercourse with the living Christ has the power of life.
There is no power of living Christ, and quitting ourselves like men, but by living out here the life He has communicated to us. Of course it is no question now of guilt upon the conscience: there would be no living Christ to us unless He had been a dead Christ. But I would rather see any one in bondage, not knowing what to make of the contrast between himself and the Christ who has given him forgiveness and' divine righteousness, than to see much liberty, in the sense and knowledge of grace, and no self: loathing at the contrast. Doubtless I am to have liberty, but God would have me see myself, and learn that I shall be a blessed person when I awake in His likeness. Oh, beloved friends! one thing is pressed much on my heart for you-for many whom I see, individually, and for all collectively. It is that you may feel the importance of living practical holiness before God. Having life-having righteousness -to which nothing can be added, and from which nothing can be taken away, as the living members of Christ before the throne, you should individually most earnestly seek to walk before God.