STANDING
STATE
23
AND
l.
THE DECLARATION.
We believe that if we are to attain to truth, we must distinguish most clearly between :
and
STATE.
STANDING
and
PRIZE.
HOPE
and
REWARD.
FREE GIFT
Otherwise, by confusing things that differ we shall give no certain sound in our witness, and have no certainty in
our work or walk.
2.
SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS.
`It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him: if we suffer, we shall also reign
with Him: if we deny Him, He also will deny us: if we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny
Himself' (2 Tim. 2:11-13).
` ... Made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light' (Col. 1:12).
`Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ' (Col.
3:24).
`In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight'
(Col. 1:22).
` ... warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ
Jesus' (Col. 1:28).
`In Whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him' (Eph. 3:12).
` ... Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling' (Phil. 2:12).
` ... I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities ... shall be able to separate us from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Rom. 8:38,39).
`Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain ... I
keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached (heralded) to
others, I myself should be a castaway (disapproved)' (1 Cor. 9:24-27).
`Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus' (Phil. 3:13,14).
`I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness' (2 Tim. 4;7,8).
3.
AN EXPANSION AND APPLICATION OF THESE SCRIPTURES.
Much mischief is wrought among the children of God by teachers failing to distinguish between those things
which belong to the believer in Christ as a free gift of grace, and those things which are held out to him as a reward
in connection with his service.
Such words as prize, crown, reward, win and gain have no place in a salvation that is by grace, through faith,
without works. It is impossible for the same believer at the same time and connected with the same thing to be
confident and yet in fear and trembling. It is specially harmful to the truth of the One Body to attempt to teach from
Philippians 3 that membership of that Body is held out as a prize to be won. It is equally untrue to speak of the prize
of Philippians 3 as the hope of the church; for if we do, then we must also teach that Paul, when he wrote
Philippians, had not then attained membership of the One Body, and was not certain of the blessed hope of
resurrection. Leave Philippians 3 as the record of an added prize that may be won, associated with perfection and
the high calling, and all is clear.