This is a point of deepest interest. The great question is not so much what the enemy may think of God’s people, or what they may think about themselves, or what they may think of one another. The real—the all-important question is, What does God think about them? He knows exactly all that concerns them, all that they are, all that they have done, all that is in them. Every thing stands clearly revealed to His all-penetrating eye. The deepest secrets of the heart, of the nature, and of the life are all known to Him. Neither angels, men, nor devils know us as God knows us. God knows us perfectly, and it is with Him we have to do; and we can say, in the triumphant language of the apostle, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. viii.) God sees us, thinks of us, speaks about us, acts towards us, according to what He Himself has made us and wrought for us, according to the perfection of His own work. “Beholders many faults may find;” but, as regards our standing, our God sees us only in the comeliness of Christ: we are perfect in Him. When God looks at His people, He beholds in them His own workmanship; and it is to the glory of His holy name, and to the praise of His salvation, that not a blemish should be seen on those who are His—those whom He, in sovereign grace, has made His own. His character, His name, His glory, and the perfection of His work are all involved in the standing of those with whom He has linked Himself.
Hence, therefore, the moment any enemy or accuser enters the scene, Jehovah places Himself in front to receive and answer the accusation; and His answer is always founded, not upon what His people are in themselves, but upon what He has made them through the perfection of His own work. His glory is linked with them, and in vindicating them, He maintains His own glory. He places Himself between them and every accusing tongue. His glory demands that they should be presented in all the comeliness which He has put upon them. If the enemy comes to curse and accuse, Jehovah answers him by pouring forth the rich current of His everlasting complacency in those whom He has chosen for Himself, and whom He has made fit to be in His presence forever.
All this is strikingly illustrated in the third chapter of the prophet Zechariah. There, too, the enemy presents himself to resist the representative of the people of God. How does God answer him? Simply by cleansing, clothing, and crowning the one whom Satan would fain curse and accuse, so that Satan has not a word to say. He is silenced forever. The filthy garments are gone, and he that was a brand is become a _mitred_ priest—he who was only fit for the flames of hell is now fitted to walk up and down in the courts of the Lord.
So also when we turn to the book of Canticles, we see the same thing. There, the bridegroom, in contemplating the bride, declares to her, “Thou art _all fair_, my love; there is _no spot_ in thee.” (Chap. iv. 7.) She, in speaking of herself, can only exclaim, “_I am black_.” (Chap. i. 5, 6.) So also in John xiii. the Lord Jesus looks at His disciples and pronounces them “clean every whit,” although, in a few hours afterwards, one of them was to curse and swear that he did not know Him. So vast is the difference between what we are in ourselves and what we are in Christ—between our positive standing and our possible state.
Should this glorious truth as to the perfection of our standing make us careless as to our practical state? Far away be the monstrous thought! Nay, the knowledge of our absolutely settled and perfect position in Christ is the very thing which the Holy Ghost makes use of in order to raise the standard of practice. Hearken to those powerful words from the pen of the inspired apostle—“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Mortify _therefore_ your members,” etc. (Col. iii. 1-5.) We must never measure the standing by the state, but always judge the state by the standing. To lower the standing because of the state, is to give the death-blow to all progress in practical Christianity.