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What I Have Found
My introduction to "brethren" assemblies.*
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3. Exaltation of the Person and Work of Christ.
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I can say with gratitude that, even before I left the denominational church, it was the "brethren" writers who taught me to glory in the Person and work of Christ Jesus. Books like Notes on Leviticus, by C. H. Mackintosh, Lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews and Lectures on the Tabernacle by Samuel Ridout, began to foster in me a deep attraction to His Person and a solid doctrinal, rather than sentimental, appreciation of His work; in short, an appetite for Christ in His manifold loveliness that I had never before known. Since casting my lot with the "brethren" I have often had cause to give thanks to God for the constant upholding of the glories of Christ in these humble assemblies of the Lord's people, and to wonder that I was so long content with a shallow, insipid, and sentimental appreciation of Him.
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And can it be denied that this accurately describes the view of Christ usually presented in current evangelical preaching, teaching, and literature? Is it not rarely that the presentation of the Cross goes beyond the physical sufferings of Christ and the assertion that "He died for your sins"? The latter is a glorious truth, no question, and perhaps the extent to which sinners can comprehend the work of Christ, but it hardly exhausts the glory of the Cross for the saints. To borrow the imagery of the Levitical offerings, ought we to stop with the trespass offering--though it be a true and blessed aspect of Christ's work--and neglect those aspects of His mighty sacrifice unfolded in the sin-offering, the peace offering, and the burnt-offering? Ah, the burnt offering--highest and most beautiful of all the typical sacrifices! Christ's work presented. not as it affects man, but as it is viewed by God; Christ pictured, not as our sin-bearer, but as the devoted One who delighted to do the will of God, even unto death, and who in turn was the delight of the Father's heart even--yes, especially--in His death. It is Christ through the eternal Spirit offering Himself without spot to God (Heb. 9:14). Who can fathom the sweetness of that offering's aroma to God! Yet--let the reader be the judge--how often do most believers hear of these things.
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