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Title: Victorious life studies
Author: McQuilkin, Robert C.
Language: English
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VICTORIOUS LIFE STUDIES
ROBERT C. McQUILKIN
Secretary
Victorious Life Testimony
Foreword by
CHARLES G. TRUMBULL
Editor of The Sunday School Times
REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION
CHRISTIAN LIFE LITERATURE FUND
Headquarters for Victorious Life Literature
Room 600 Perry Building
16th and Chestnut Streets Philadelphia
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| The publishers would esteem it a privilege to be informed |
| of blessing definitely received by any reader as a result |
| of the perusal of this book. |
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| OLIVER RICHARD HEINZE, |
| Director. |
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Copyright, 1918, by
Christian Life Literature Fund
FOREWORD
Did you ever go with a very dear friend into some foreign land,――say
one of the islands of the sea, like Madeira; and there you and your
friend vie with each other in making new discoveries of things
beautiful and fresh to both of you: new flowers, fruits, birds, vistas
in valleys or mountains? If so, you know something of what it means to
explore, with a friend, in the land of Victory in Christ.
It was the new and undiscovered country of the Victorious Life that
brought us together, Bob McQuilkin and me. (New and undiscovered to
us, that is, but as old as the Day of Pentecost.) We should never have
been friends but for Him; we entered, not far apart, the “foreign
land” of undreamed riches and delights; and ever since then we have
been joyously telling each other of our discoveries, comparing notes,
sharing our finds, and together thanking Him who alone is the Promised
Land, the Life, and the Victory.
God has greatly blessed me through the discoveries of my friend, as our
common Guide, the Holy Spirit, has led him on and on into always new
and clearer visions of what belongs, in Christ, to every Christian. I
am glad that he is now sharing his findings and his convictions with
many, through these studies in the Victorious Life.
As one reads this book, let it be remembered that the Victorious Life
is not optional for the Christian who wants God’s whole will. It is a
simple duty for every Christian to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:
18); and being filled with the Spirit means having Victory and all that
goes with this.
We think of the New Testament, and rightly, as being God’s revelation
concerning how men may be saved from the wages of sin. They deserved
death penalty, or hell. This is true, but have we realized, as a
clear-sighted Bible teacher has pointed out, that a much greater part
of the New Testament is devoted to telling Christians how to live after
they are saved than how to be saved? Have we asked ourselves why this
is so? Have we realized what a sad commentary on the Gospel is the man
who claims that Christ has saved him completely from the penalty of his
sins, yet in whose life is plainly seen, and habitually, the unbroken
power of sin?
This book tells how to be as free from the power of sin as from its
penalty. It gives God’s own message on _present_ salvation: salvation
from sin now and here.
What the Victorious Life is; how to make it one’s own in practical
experience; how it may be not only entered into, but maintained;
how it differs in life-and-death ways from false substitutes for
Victory,――these and other questions that are perplexing many a burdened
and seeking Christian are discussed here and answered out of God’s
word.
Closest fellowship with Mr. McQuilkin for five years, when we were
together daily in editorial work, enables me to know that he has come
to his present convictions after exhaustive Bible study, frequent
conference with mature and trusted Bible students, and wide reading
in the best works, new and old, in this field; but above all, after
his rich personal experience, through surrender and faith, of Christ’s
freely offered power and grace to meet all needs in the believer’s
life. With thanksgiving to the Captain of our Salvation, who never asks
us to win victories for Him, but Who has already won all our victories
for us, This book is prayerfully commended in His Name.
CHARLES GALLAUDET TRUMBULL.
CONTENTS
A Word of Explanation vii
Preface to Second Edition ix
I. What Is the Victorious Life? 1
II. Out of Bondage Into Liberty 13
III. God’s New Spelling for “Obey” 22
IV. When Temptation Strikes in the Victorious Life 31
V. Conquest of Temptation in the Victorious Life 38
VI. How Jesus Lived the Victorious Life 47
VII. Serving With the “Mind of Christ” 55
VIII. The Second Coming and the Victorious Life 63
IX. Christian Science and the Victorious Life 72
X. Is the Victorious Life a Second Blessing? 82
XI. Continuing and Growing in Victory 94
XII. Can Man Be Free From Sin? 102
XIII. The Holy Spirit in the Victorious Life 119
A WORD OF EXPLANATION
BY THE AUTHOR
Most of these “studies” have been published, or are yet to be
published, as editorials or articles in _The Sunday School Times_.
There has been added an introductory article written particularly
for those who may have little acquaintance with the meaning of the
Victorious Life.
Each chapter has been prepared as an article complete in itself, but
there are three pairs of articles which form closely connected studies.
The chapters entitled, “Out of Bondage Into Liberty,” and “God’s New
Spelling for ‘Obey’” form one study on the relation of law and grace
in the life of the Christian. The two chapters on temptation form one
study. The chapter on “How Jesus Lived the Victorious Life” and the one
which follows on “Serving with the Mind of Christ” form a connected
study on the practical meaning for us of our Lord’s humanity.
Whenever use has been made of the writings or messages of others I
have endeavored to give full credit, but there should be added here
a personal word of special acknowledgment. My own entrance into a
new experience in Christ seven years ago came through the message of
Charles G. Trumbull, who himself just a year before had found Christ
in the new way that transformed his own life and with it the message
of _The Sunday School Times_. Following my new experience and this
new friendship there was the rare privilege of five years’ fellowship
with Mr. Trumbull as Associate Editor of _The Sunday School Times_, a
work that was surrendered at the call of the Lord to go into foreign
missionary service. This being the foundation of these studies on
the Victorious Life, it may well be that in addition to the sentences
in quotation marks used with or without Mr. Trumbull’s name, there
are statements and ways of putting things that have come directly or
indirectly from this association. This applies particularly to the
first article; the others embody more definitely suggested applications
that have not been touched upon in other articles or editorials in _The
Sunday School Times_. Those familiar with “The Life That Wins,” the
leaflet that tells Mr. Trumbull’s personal experience, will recall the
threefold division of the needs in the Christian life,――“fellowship,
freedom from sin, fruit bearing,”――which is the division used in the
first chapter of these studies.
Many have been eagerly awaiting Mr. Trumbull’s own book on the
Victorious Life, which will deal with the subject in a comprehensive
and connected way. It is hoped that this booklet may prove a helpful
supplement to the later work.
Special acknowledgment should be made also to another beloved teacher,
Professor Melvin Grove Kyle, for his illuminating suggestions on
temptation. While this study of temptation and the outline were begun
before taking theological work under Dr. Kyle, its development has
been strongly influenced by the rich suggestions that are quoted from
Professor Kyle.
The little book goes out with the prayer that whatever errors of
statement or of judgment may be discovered, these errors may not bulk
so large in the mind of the reader as to shut him out from the glorious
blessing of victory in Christ, or if he has learned that secret to keep
him from further riches of Grace the Word may have for him. As you read
through these chapters will you pray through them also? If you receive
a blessing, will you pray that God may use it with other readers, and
that He alone may be glorified who is our Victory.
_July 20, 1918._
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
BY THE AUTHOR.
This revised and enlarged edition of Victorious Life Studies should not
go forth without grateful acknowledgment for an abundant answer to the
prayer that whatever errors of statement or of judgment might be found
they should not hinder the blessing that God intended from these little
“studies.” There is not alone thanksgiving to the Lord of answered
prayer, but to those who shared in the prayer for blessing, and it is
hoped that the increasing circle of those who are finding new riches of
grace in our sufficient Saviour may continue to ask God’s guidance and
blessing upon all attempts to put into print the message of victory in
Christ.
Changes have been made here and there which affect the use of certain
theological expressions which were not accurately used, and which would
serve to confuse the truth. While none of these corrections, so far as
I know, changes the vital truth that was intended to be expressed, the
further study of terms used in Scripture, and terms used theologically
that are not in the Scriptures, leads to a conviction that it is
helpful to avoid the use of any term the meaning of which is not clear
to the one who uses it.
While these studies were not intended as a comprehensive treatment of
the subject, it was thought well to take advantage of the call for a
second edition by adding two studies, one to consider the relation of
the work of the Holy Spirit to the life of victory in Christ, the other
to ask what the Scriptures mean by freedom from sin.
After outlining these studies in preparation for this new edition,
it was my privilege to be associated in Victorious Life Conferences
throughout the country with Dr. A. J. Ramsey, who is now giving his
whole time to the work of the Victorious Life Testimony. So far as may
be possible in such a word as this I wish to acknowledge the great debt
of gratitude I owe to Dr. Ramsey, whose masterly expositions of Romans
and First John, and other Scriptures dealing with the sin question,
have served to confirm and clarify the glorious truth of God’s plan
of victory over sin which a direct study of his Word will disclose to
every earnest seeker. With a first-hand knowledge of classical and New
Testament Greek which ranks with the leading teachers of that language,
with an intimate knowledge of the ramifications of all the theological
systems as well as the false “faiths,” Dr. Ramsey for eighteen years
has been studying the Scriptures against the back-ground of an
experience of the fulness of the Holy Spirit which transformed his own
life and ministry. The result is that from all over the land have come
insistent calls that he should put into print some of the results of
this study which has given a new Bible to scores of ministers and other
Christian workers where the message has been spoken.
* * * * *
Accordingly, Dr. Ramsey is hoping soon to prepare leaflets that will
discuss such questions as “What is Sin?” “The Body of Sin: Who has It?”
“The Old Man: Who is He?” “The Law of Sin: Who Obeys It?” “The Carnal
Mind: What Is It?” “Is Romans Seven Christian?” “Is First John One
Eight for Christians?” Others will deal with the conflict of “flesh and
Spirit,” and the question whether a Christian has two natures, and it
is planned later to issue a brief exposition of Romans. The studies in
this little volume necessarily deal with some of these questions but as
far as possible I have sought to avoid encroaching upon the distinctive
contribution that Dr. Ramsey will bring in the careful exegesis of
these Scriptures, and the scientific handling of the psychology and
ethics that are involved as well as the theology.
To Dr. Ramsey I am indebted for a number of the changes in phraseology,
but most of all for the glad confirmation that the truths so self
evident in the Scriptures, but so obscured in the writings of men,
do rest upon an irrefutable theology, an exegesis of Scripture that
cannot be gainsaid. It is this that has given courage to speak plainly
on some vital points that need clearing up. And it is a matter for
encouragement to every humble student of the Word that without the
equipment of a specially gifted mind and a scientific training, it is
possible to arrive at both the understanding and experience of the
simple plan of salvation from sin.
Shall we also remember as these pages are read that while the Holy
Spirit does use human teachers to help us to know His truth, it is our
responsibility to make the truth our own by seeing it in the Word for
ourselves. Let us have nothing in our experience or our understanding
of salvation merely as a result of what any man has said or written
regarding the Word of God: let us have a glad original experience of
Christ through searching for ourselves whether these things are so.
_June 19, 1920._
VICTORIOUS LIFE STUDIES
WHAT IS THE VICTORIOUS LIFE?
Are you enjoying the Victorious Life?
The Victorious Life is a life of victory over sin. Do you have it?
The Victorious Life is a life of constant fellowship with God. Do you
have it?
The Victorious Life is a life of fruit-bearing. Do you have it?
Do you have the peace of God that passeth all understanding? Do you
have freedom from worry and discouragement so that you are “anxious
in nothing”? Do you have the joy of the Lord, which is independent of
feeling, and independent of circumstances? Are you able _in all things_
to give thanks?
Have you, shed abroad in your heart, the love that suffers long and is
kind, that envies not, that vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, does
not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, _is not provoked_?
Do you enjoy in actual experience the fruit of the Spirit, in its
nine-fold variety: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control? (Gal. 5: 22, 23).
Is prayer a precious reality to you, so that you can come to a living,
present Lord to talk over every question that affects your life? Do you
know what it is to ask and receive, to abide in him and have his word
abide in you so that whatsoever you ask you receive? Do your prayers
change things?
Is the Bible to you sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, more to be
desired than gold? Do you go each day to the Word and get a direct
personal message from the Master to your own soul, to meet the very
need of that day?
If this picture of the Spirit-filled Life, as it is given in the
Word of God, does not describe the experience you are having, then
you do not have the Victorious Life. There is something that the
Lord Jesus offers that _you do not have_. You may have some of these
things at times, you may have glorious fruit-bearing, you may know the
Lord in a vital and real way, but if there is not _complete victory_
over sin,――which includes such things as worry, discouragement, lack
of love, irritation, pride, jealousy, impatience, covetousness,
worldliness, lust,――then you do not have the Victorious Life, and there
is an experience in Christ awaiting you which will transform life.
Your lack in these things does not mean, necessarily, that you are not
a Christian, a born-again child of God, saved by the blood of Christ:
it does mean that you are not using in experience what the Lord Jesus
provided for you by his death and resurrection.
The First Step Toward Victory
Do you believe there is something in the Christian life that you have
not found, or that you do not possess? And do you want that experience?
If you can say yes to these questions, then give thanks to God that he
has led you by his Grace to take the first step toward Victory.
The first step toward the Victorious Life is for a Christian to
recognize the need, to realize that there is an experience that he
does not possess. As in the case of an unconverted man who can never
understand nor receive the Gospel message till he comes to the place
of seeing himself a sinner, so a satisfied and defeated Christian is
in no place to receive the Victorious Life message. The defeated man
described in the seventh chapter of Romans cries out, “O wretched man
that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” The
reason some Christians have never tasted the victory of the eighth
chapter of Romans is because they have never known anything of the
struggle that is described in the seventh chapter of Romans.
A College Student’s “Problem”
A young college student came to a speaker on the Victorious Life for an
interview, but started in by saying that he had no “problems” in his
Christian life.
“Do you have complete victory over sin?”
“Well, it depends on what you mean by sin.”
“Do you ever have angry thoughts and feelings in your heart toward
others?”
“Do you mean get ‘peeved’ at people? Sure I do.”
“Do you ever worry about things?”
“Worry about things! I should say I do. Everybody does.”
“Do you ever have impure thoughts and desires in your heart?”
“Yes, I do.”
“These things are sins, aren’t they?”
“Yes, I suppose they are.”
“These are the things that put the Lord Jesus on the Cross. You have
these things in your life, you do not have victory over them and other
like sins, and yet you tell me you have no ‘problem’ in your Christian
life.”
This young college student was led by the Spirit to see the inner
meaning of sin and to confess that he did indeed need something in his
Christian life that he did not have.
The sin problem is the problem of all problems. If the sin problem
in your life is settled in God’s way, you will have the secret of
solving all other problems in God’s way. Fellowship with God, peace,
joy, freedom from anxiety, power for service, the right enjoyment
and use of Bible study and prayer, all of these things and every gift
of grace will be open to you when you get the sin question settled.
At Victorious Life conferences, Christians come to the leaders and
say that they are not troubled in the matter of getting victory over
sin, but that they do not get results in their Christian service and
they want the Holy Spirit for power in service. In every such case it
is found that the real difficulty is the sin question: there is not
complete, Spirit-given victory over inward sin. When that is settled
the power in service and the results follow.
When God came to choose a name for his Son, some one has pointed out,
he went to the heart of the subject and called his name “Jesus,”
because it is he that shall save his people from their sins. It is
going to the heart of the Christian’s need, then, first to emphasize
victory over sin as the road to all other blessings of the Abundant
Life.
What is God’s way of securing this Victory?
There are two ways of getting money, or any other thing of
value――either working for it, or receiving it as a gift.
Two Ways to Seek Victory
There are two ways of seeking after salvation――working for it or
receiving it as a gift. But there are not two ways of _obtaining_
salvation or eternal life. For when a sinner works, he works sin; and
the _wages_ of sin is death. Life is never earned. Death is. Life must
be given. So the free gift of God, the only author of life, is eternal
life. We are saved by Grace, not by works, for the least particle of
“works” would make Grace void.
There are two ways of seeking after the Victorious Life, present
freedom from the law of sin――working for it, striving and struggling
after it, or receiving it as a free gift, without effort. There are
not two ways of _obtaining_ Victory. For when a saved sinner struggles
with inward desires toward evil he is under the law――using his own
efforts――and not under grace, and the struggle at some time or other
always ends in defeat.
The Victorious Life is a free gift from God. It cannot be earned. It
therefore must be accepted on the same terms as salvation from the
penalty of sin. It must be received as a gift. To enjoy a gift one has
but to take it, and thank the giver.
“Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but
under grace” (Rom. 6:14). “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor.
12:9).
To believe these words of God is to enjoy the gift of victory.
“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the
law of sin and of death” (Rom. 8:2).
To believe this word is to enjoy present freedom from the law of
sin. “Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.... If
therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John
8:34, 35).
“If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Gal. 5:18),
that is, we are under Grace. And Grace means, Jesus Christ is doing it
all for us, winning the victory for us by his indwelling power.
The Much More Salvation
These Scriptures show clearly that God’s way of victory over present
sin is by the power of the Holy Spirit. That new law, the law of the
Spirit, makes us free from the law of sin. “If, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more,
being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10). This
is the “much more salvation,” present salvation by his indwelling
life. Reconciled saints need to be “saved,” and the Victorious Life is
nothing other than salvation by free grace, in present action, applied
to each temptation and problem.
God’s plan of salvation from the present power of sin, therefore, is
exactly the same plan as he has revealed for salvation from the death
penalty of sin. Both are by free grace without effort on your part.
Both are to be received and enjoyed by faith. After the remarkable
passage in the fifth chapter of Galatians, which gives the nine-fold
fruit of the Spirit, there is this statement: “If we live by the
Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk” (Gal. 5:25). That is, since
we have been born again by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit,
by that same supernatural Spirit, without effort on our part, let us
also live our daily lives, winning victory over sin by just letting the
fruit of the Spirit be produced, letting the rivers of living waters
flow out (John 7:38).
It follows from this that every Christian really has received the gift
of Victory from God, for it is just the indwelling Christ through the
power of the Spirit. But how few, how very few Christians are enjoying
the remarkable results of that gift, the freedom from the law of sin,
the fruit of the Spirit. Why is this? A generation ago there were very
many earnest Christians who thought it presumptuous to be sure of
their salvation. They may have been saved and been blessed with all
spiritual blessings in Christ, but they were not, and some Christians
to-day are not, _enjoying assurance of salvation_. Even so defeated
Christians, who walk now and then after the flesh and fall into sin,
are not enjoying the freedom that Christ purchased for them. They are
not living up to their privileges in the Lord. The word of freedom has
not been benefiting them, because it has not been united by faith with
them that heard. “For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us,
even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because
it was not united by faith with them that heard” (Heb. 4:2).
The Two Simple Conditions
The simplicity of entering into this New Life has been a stumbling
block to many. For there are but two conditions for victory, and every
Christian has been given grace to meet these two conditions. The first
is surrender. For that resurrection life of Jesus can only operate when
our self effort ceases. “Yield yourselves unto God” (Rom. 6:13). Or as
Weymouth translates it: “Surrender your very selves unto God.” And this
was spoken to Christians. This surrender of the Christian to God is
positive, not negative. It is not as a surrender of things, nor of an
evil self life, but a yielding of self with all its powers to God, as
alive from the dead. With this positive surrender everything contrary
to God’s will goes out of the life.
Surrender a Definite Matter
Failure frequently comes in the life of Victory because there has not
been a complete surrender. Something has been held back. Or we have
been too superficial in our understanding of what crucifixion of the
old self life means. Now our Lord is lovingly ready to meet us when
we come eager for full salvation and willing to make full surrender
to him. He will show us if we ask him, _and wait for his answer_,
whether there is anything that is not wholly surrendered to him. Some
Christians say this matter of surrender is very vague, and they cannot
tell whether they have really surrendered completely. As a matter
of fact, the Holy Spirit is always very definite when we deal with
him earnestly. One woman who said the surrender matter was entirely
too vague for her to know whether she had surrendered, after some
questioning remarked: “Well, of course, I would not be willing to have
my two sons go to Africa as missionaries.” The matter of surrender was
very definite for her and until this Christian mother lays her two boys
on the altar for Christ she will not know complete victory.
Young people sometimes stumble over surrendering such things as
worldly amusements, the theatre, dramatic moving pictures, dancing,
card-playing, smoking. They argue that they do not regard these things
as sins, though others may believe them to be. But surely if we are
facing the question of getting such a great Gift as Christ as our
Victory and very Life, these things are small matters to yield. But if
they are not sins, are they “weights” in the Christian race? “Let us
... lay aside _every weight_, and the sin which doth so easily beset
us” (Heb. 12:1).
When A Christian Robs Christ
But, it may be objected, how can a Christian surrender? Does he not
already belong to Christ? Ah, that is the sad tragedy of it. Will a
man rob God? Yes, the Church of Christ is largely robbing him to-day
of the only offering he cares for――ourselves as living sacrifices. We
are indeed bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ, we are
not our own, we belong to him. Have _you_ acknowledged this ownership
in every detail, not with your lips alone, but with your life, in its
every action? That is the first requirement for Victory. And Victory
will never be enjoyed until the surrender question is settled. An
earnest young Christian woman was in defeat and distress because there
was something she would not yield. She acknowledged it was pride, but
she could not give it up.
“Whom do you belong to?” she was asked.
“Christ.”
“What price did he pay for you?”
“His own life.”
“But you are saying to him there is something you are holding back.
What are you doing?”
“I suppose I am crucifying him afresh,” she answered, the tears coming.
“Yes, you are robbing him.”
But the struggle went on and she would not yield.
“Will you kneel down and just tell the Lord that you are robbing him,
and that you intend to keep on robbing him?”
She shrank from such a thought, and she kneeled down and told her Lord
that she _would_ yield that one thing she was holding back, and that
there was nothing that she was not willing to do that he wanted.
She arose with a radiant face, and as the days went on it developed
that God did not want her to do the thing she was shrinking back from
doing. A Christian may be kept out of victory because he says he would
not be willing to go to the mission field, or send his sons to the
mission field. God _may not want him to go_, but he can never have
Victory as long as there is an unwillingness to do what God _may_ want
him to do. For this is doubting God and his love.
More Needed Than Surrender
But there are multitudes of Christians who are truly surrendered,
holding nothing back, who do not have Victory. For the surrendered life
is not necessarily the Victorious Life. Surrender is _our_ part. The
supernatural work of Victory is _God’s_ part. _God is doing his part
as soon as we yield ourselves_, and we get the benefit of it when we
believe that fact. This is Victory by faith. “Faith does nothing. Faith
believes that God is doing it all.” Faith is just believing the word of
God. Those marvelous promises, or rather “facts” of God’s Grace which
have been quoted above can only be received by the Christian who is
holding nothing back from God. Then all the rest is God’s work.
Is he faithful? We have surrendered. Is our part then to believe that
God will give us Victory? _No, that is not faith._ “Victory’s final
secret,” as Mr. Trumbull has put it, is to believe that Christ _is_
doing his part, that his Grace _is_ sufficient, that we _are_ free from
the law of sin, that we _are_ under Grace and not under law and that
therefore sin _is not having dominion_ over us, that he _is_ meeting
all our needs, but we _are_ walking in the Spirit. This is “letting
God.”
Will you not “let go, and let God?” Now?
If you do, you can say with Paul, not only as a truth of your position
in Christ, but as the blessed truth of your experience: “I have been
crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ
liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20).
What It Is Not
The Victorious Life is not a life free from temptation, but a life of
victory over temptation. First Corinthians 10:13, with its “there is
no temptation” is an absolute guarantee from God that victory over all
temptations is possible; for he himself provides the way of escape.
Jesus,――in his resurrection Life,――is the Way.
The Victorious Life is not a life free from the possibility of falling
into sin. It is always possible at any moment to sin, and as soon as
our eyes get off Jesus faith slips, self is in control, and the result
is sin.
The Victorious Life is not dependent on circumstances. Nothing is too
hard for God, not even your hard circumstances. And let us always
remember that the Victorious Life is “_the Life that is Christ_.” He is
as able under one circumstance as under another.
The Victorious Life is not an attainment by growth. True growth in
Grace really begins when we take the Grace of the Lord for complete
victory over sin. Growth in Grace does not mean gradually getting rid
of our sins, but it does mean growing from one degree of glory to
another degree of glory as we behold the Lord and are changed into his
image (2 Cor. 3:18).
The Victorious Life gives no cause for boasting of spiritual
attainment. Grace excludes boasting. It gives us no holiness of our
own. The holiness and the victory are His, and the most mature saint
in the walk of faith needs the same secret of Victory as the young
Christian just entering into the Life. His strength is ever made
perfect in weakness. My weakness is never made stronger, though as I
learn more of the Bible teaching of what faith is I may get more and
more established in acting by faith.
Continuing in Victory
We continue in the Life of Victory as we entered it, by continuing the
attitude of surrender and faith, moment by moment. It is the principle
of “contact”; as long as the trolley keeps on the wire the electric
power is supplied to run the car; as we keep looking unto Jesus there
is Victory. If a slip of faith comes, if the trolley gets off the wire,
and sin enters (which is always possible but never necessary), do not
stop to argue with Satan about the sin or listen to his suggestion that
you never had Victory: confess, receive instant forgiveness (1 John
1:9), look again in faith just as when you entered into the blessed
“rest of faith.”
Does this message leave you with joy and gladness in your heart,
because you know that this life is yours? Have you taken the Gift? Or
are you like the young Christian who told an older woman that she had
surrendered and believed _a thousand times_, and she was in hopeless
darkness about it all.
“Well,” this older Christian said, “just stop doing that, or trying to
do anything, and trust him to do it all.”
“I have done that a hundred times,” was the discouraged answer.
She had no will power to do anything, and she was hungry for Victory.
“If you can do nothing else, just lift up your heart to Christ.”
“I can’t. My heart is too heavy to lift up.”
It Is as Simple as This
“Well, one thing you can do, for it is just a physical act. You can
lift up your eyes. Will you do that?”
The young woman promised that she would do that, and on the way home
she kept her eyes directed upward as unto him. The next day she gave
her testimony with a radiant face, rejoicing in the Lord: “I lifted up
my eyes, and my heart went up with them.”
The Victorious Life is just as gloriously simple as that――just looking
up――unto Jesus――and KEEP ON LOOKING.
OUT OF BONDAGE INTO LIBERTY
“They do not care a snap of their fingers whether Abraham was
justified by faith or works,” writes a leading American preacher in
a recent article that seeks to interpret the heart-cry of men to-day
for a prophet who can give them “a spiritual interpretation of the
world-rending and home-smashing events that are taking place.”
Yet that very same question which was the all-important thing for
Abraham, to-day, nearly four thousand years later, is still the
question that goes to the root of the world’s spiritual problem.
There is nothing more important for the Christian to understand than
the distinction between law and grace. For to understand that is to
have in one’s heart the Gospel message. It is not too much to say that
the chief cause of powerlessness in the Christian church to-day, a
powerlessness that is made the more acutely evident by the world’s sore
travail, is that so many thousands of Christians are still living under
law.
They have not found the emancipation of grace.
They do not walk at liberty, which was purchased for us by Christ.
They do not stand fast in the freedom wherewith Christ has set us free.
They are not “free indeed” with the freedom which the Son of God won
for us.
This is not an academic question. It is not a discussion of points
of law, nor the making of fine distinctions in the deeper spiritual
mysteries. _It is a question of sin._
When our Lord was telling the Jews that if they believed him and
followed him they would know the truth, and the truth would set them
free, they threw back their shoulders in their pride of ancestry and
boasted that they were Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any
man. The Son of God did not stop to discuss questions of race, or of
political liberty, but went to the heart of the matter with one of his
tremendous verilies: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that
committeth sin is the bondservant of sin” (John 8:34).
Christians Who Are Bondslaves
That Word of the King of kings is the word that needs to be thundered
to-day, or, what is more effective, whispered to-day into the souls of
men. There is no bondslavery comparable to this. A man may be on the
side of righteousness so far as the conflict of nations is concerned
to-day, but what avails that for the solving of his individual problem
if he is the bondservant of sin?
If, then, the question of law and grace is a question of sin, it is the
most vital matter that can concern men to-day. Always alongside of sin
is another word beginning with S――“Salvation,”――that is, this word is
always alongside of sin in _this age of Grace_. When our Lord told the
Jews of this bondslavery, he did not leave them there, but added that
wondrous word: “If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be
free indeed.”
There is needed to-day a great challenge to be thrown at an unbelieving
world, a testimony that cannot be answered,――_Christians walking at
liberty_, men and women living in the midst of these awful days of
stress with the “freedom indeed” which belongs only to sons of God. But
instead of that an unbelieving world is constantly face to face with
the puzzling spectacle of professing Christians who are bondservants of
sin, who do not know the meaning of liberty.
For let us remember the word of the Master, and not nullify it with
theological explanations to make it fit into the experiences of
Christians: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth
sin is the bondservant of sin.” And Christians are bondservants of sin
because they are living under law and not under grace. They are not
using, not enjoying, the freedom that Jesus Christ purchased for us.
Have We Nothing to Do with Law?
So fundamental is the correct understanding of the Christian’s relation
to the law, that if Satan is not able to beguile Christians into
staying in bondage under the law he will seek to drive them into an
opposite error that is just as deadly to true liberty. This is the
notion that a Christian has nothing to do with the law, and is under no
obligation to have his life conform to it. Young Christians who have
seen something of the wonder of their deliverance from the law have
jumped to the conclusion that the Old Testament books that deal with
the dispensation of law have such an indirect bearing upon their lives
that they can neglect them. Portions of the New Testament are also
divided in this fashion from the rest of the Word, and even Christians
with a deep spiritual vision have argued that the Sermon on the Mount
had little in it for them because it was on legal ground, and we are
under grace. Their teachers may not have intended this application of
their instruction about freedom from the law, but it illustrates the
danger, and shows the need of clear light from the Word to avoid the
pitfalls on each side.
So the Word of God urges on the one hand, “For freedom did Christ set
us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of
bondage” (Gal. 5:1), and cautions on the other, “For so is the will
of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance
of foolish men: as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of
wickedness, but as bondservants of God” (1 Peter 2:16).
And Paul puts the two messages together in Galatians 5:13 and 14: “For
ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an
occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. For
the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself.”
Law in the New Testament
But in what sense are we freed from the law, if we are still to keep
the law? The New Testament takes hold of the law of God as revealed in
the Old, and makes it infinitely higher in its requirements.
Some men say that their Gospel is the Sermon on the Mount.
It is the most hopeless Gospel a sinner ever struggled with.
For in this sermon our Lord pours the spiritual meanings into the
law of God. It may have been possible for a man to abstain from the
outward act of murder, but our Lord takes that command and shows that
the inward fact of murder is in a man’s heart if he is angry with his
brother. So does the Master lift the command against impurity into
a place where the strong moral man, who does not have the secret of
victory, is convicted of impurity.
Not only is there this spiritual interpretation of the law, which makes
it the more impossible to keep it, but there is the new commandment the
Lord gave his disciples, to love one another _as he loved them_. And
as though this were not enough, the New Testament epistles, after the
death and resurrection, when the dispensation of law was fully over,
show us that to break the law of God at one point makes us guilty of
all: “Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture,
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well: but if ye have
respect of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as
transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble
in one point, he is become guilty of all. For he that said, Do not
commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou dost not commit
adultery, but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law”
(James 2:8-11).
This startling passage says that if Christians have respect of
persons――and has not the Spirit here put his finger upon one of
the most pathetic and abominable sins of Christian churches of our
day?――these Christians are convicted as transgressors of the law, and
are guilty of all. Then the Apostle goes on to speak of the sins of
murder and adultery as samples of the kind of thing that a Christian is
guilty of when he shows respect of persons,――the awful sin of unlove.
Law Never Abrogated
This leads us into the truth that the law of God is pure and holy and
spiritual, and has never been abrogated. The New Covenant does not take
away the law: it provides a way of fulfilling the law. There are many
senses in which the word “law” is used in the Scriptures, but we are
looking now at the righteous law of God which must be fulfilled, and
the breaking of which is sin, for sin is lawlessness, or the breaking
of the law. James tells us that to stumble in one point is to break the
whole law, for the law is a unity.
The law is a unity because it is an expression of the character of God,
and God is one.
To break it in one point is to sin against God. It is a true revelation
of the Scriptures that “God is law,” though these words do not occur.
The words “God is love” do occur, and love is the fulfilling of the law.
When God gave the perfect law to men God knew that men could not keep
it apart from the secret of Grace. _But men did not know it._ And God
cannot do anything for a man by grace until man learns that he is a
transgressor of the law of God, and that it is _impossible for him to
keep it_. Israel said, “All that Jehovah hath spoken we will do.” They
indeed needed a tutor unto Christ.
The law, then, was added to show man what sin is, to make sin exceeding
sinful, to prove to man that he is a sinner. This work the law did all
through the old dispensation. But this work the law must continue to do
for every individual before he can enter into the meaning of grace.
That Seventh of Romans Struggle
That is what the struggle of the seventh chapter of Romans means. That
is a struggle under law, the picture of a man who has been brought
under condemnation by the law. The law is a great mirror let down from
heaven in which a man may see himself as he is. That is why the law
brings condemnation and death. It is a curse,――not because the law is
not holy, but because it convicts the man of his unholiness. Law does
this in the New Testament as well as the Old, and with infinitely more
searching terribleness because of the high spiritual interpretation of
the inner meaning of the outward commands. The law of God has done its
work in a Christian when he has seen that it is impossible for him to
be good according to God’s standard.
Not all have seen this. Dr. Scofield tells of a gentleman who came to
him at the close of a talk on how a Christian might get out of the
struggle of the seventh chapter of Romans into the victory of the
eighth chapter, and asked him this: “Doctor, what was the trouble with
Paul anyway? Why did he find it so hard to be good? I don’t find it
very hard to be good.”
“What do you mean by being good?” the preacher asked.
“What every one means――living a clean life, being honest, paying your
debts, treating people right, and if your neighbor gets in trouble put
your hand in your pocket and help him out.”
“Oh,” Dr. Scofield responded, “Paul did those things all his life. Any
_gentleman_ would do those things. Paul was not talking of that when he
said it was a struggle to be good.”
“Well, what did he mean?” the business man asked, somewhat taken aback.
“Not Built That Way!”
“Did you ever try to be meek?” was the preacher’s next question.
“What’s that?”
“Did you ever try to be meek?”
“No, sir! I don’t admire a meek man.”
“Don’t you? Well, God does. His Son was meek and lowly. But now suppose
you started off some morning and determined to be meek all that day, to
love everybody, no matter what mean things another man might say. Would
you find it easy?”
“I couldn’t do it. That’s not in my line. I’m not built that way.”
Just so, we are not built that way. We need to be built over. A new
life needs to come in. And when the law has brought us to that point,
and we cry out with Paul, “Wretched man that I am!” then the law has
done its proper work. The tragic thing is that most Christians stop
right there in their reading of the seventh chapter of Romans. They
do not go on to the glorious word of deliverance. There is a way out.
Paul has been in bondage under the law of sin. But a new law enters,
and he exclaims, “The law of the Spirit ... made me free from the law
of sin and of death.” What is the new power of that law of the Spirit?
“_Life in Christ Jesus._” What happens when the law of the Spirit is
working, when we are enjoying the freedom indeed wherewith Christ hath
set us free? _The requirement of the law is fulfilled in us._ This law
of the Spirit, of the new Life in Christ Jesus, hath set us free from
the law of sin and death, in order that we might keep the law of God.
And it is kept in us just as long as we walk in the Spirit. God’s plan
is that we should walk in the Spirit all the time; that is “abiding in
Christ.” The struggle of the seventh of Romans is a struggle _under
the law_, it is human effort apart from grace. It is not given as the
normal Christian experience, but a parenthesis between two passages
of glorious liberty, placed there to show what bearing the keeping
of the law has upon the Christian’s experience. The normal Christian
experience is freedom from the dominion of sin.
What Grace Says
“Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law but
under grace.” The secret of victory, therefore, is to keep under grace,
which is walking in the Spirit. How is this to be done? All Christians
who have real assurance of salvation see clearly that we are saved by
grace. Law has condemned them. Law says “Do,” and we cannot do.
Grace says, “Jesus Christ has done it for me.”
“How much in the matter of my salvation has he done?”
“All of it.”
“How much is there left for me to do?”
_Nothing._ “Faith does nothing”; faith believes that Jesus has done it
all.
Now this is exactly the case with Christian living, and the keeping
of the law of God. Whenever a Christian sins, sin is having dominion
over him, and that means that he is living under law where he does not
belong, and needs to get under grace. Here, just as in salvation from
the penalty of sin, grace means that Jesus Christ is doing it all.
What is left for me then in the matter of winning victory over sin?
_Nothing._ Faith believes that Jesus is doing it all. That is grace,
and nothing else is. For if my effort enters, it is not of grace, but
partly by the work of the law. That is making void the grace of God,
“for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought”
(Gal. 2:21).
Christian liberty is changing the bondslavery of sin for the
bondslavery of Christ; it is freedom from the law in order that the law
may be kept in us by Another; it is changing the law that “made nothing
perfect” for “the perfect law, the law of liberty.” “So speak ye, and
so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty” (James 2:12).
GOD’S NEW SPELLING FOR “OBEY”
“Trust and obey” is frequently given as the key to living the
Victorious Life. “Surrender and obedience,” another suggests as the
things necessary for continuance in victory. Instant obedience to every
word of God, another says, is absolutely necessary if one would be in
victory. Another teacher points out that the New Testament reduces all
God’s commandments to two,――believe in Jesus and love one another,――and
our duty is thus simplified: we are to obey these two commandments and
victory is ours.
But to obey these commandments is exactly what I cannot do. If I obey
these two commandments, the whole law of God is fulfilled in me. It is
because I have failed to fulfil this perfect law of God, that I cry out
with Paul, “Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” The answer
to that question gives me the secret of the Victorious Life, the Life
that results in obedience. Of what avail is it to tell me that the
secret of living the Victorious Life is to obey God, when the very
reason I am hungry after the Life is because it _results_ in obedience.
That Life does what I have failed to do――obey God.
So long as we make obedience the cause or producer of victory, so long
are we under the law. We are living under the Old Covenant. The law
says, “He that doeth them [God’s statutes] shall live in them”; that
is, it is the law-keeper’s obedience which brings life and victory.
But, it will be answered, when Christians are urged to obey it is
not intended that they should do this in their own strength. We must
constantly seek divine help to obey. There is the human side and the
divine side. On our part we are to strive with all our willpower
against sin, and God’s part is to help us in the struggle.
Making Victory Impossible
There is one trouble with this program of human effort co-operating
with divine power. _It always leads to defeat_, bringing the struggling
man under the dominion of sin. It produces the man pictured in the
seventh chapter of Romans. It is the program followed by nearly all
Christians.
And that is why nearly all Christians are living in defeat practically
all of the time.
It is not that defeats come now and again in the face of difficult
temptations; the distressing thing in the experience of most earnest
Christians is the consciousness that complete victory is _never_
enjoyed; the occasional bad falls are but indications of a chronic
condition of defeat.
The Two Covenants
The reason for this life of defeat is that Christians mingle law and
grace, and this makes complete victory an impossibility. When we are
in defeat it is because we are under the Old Covenant, which can make
nothing perfect. It may be that we are clear intellectually on the
distinction between law and grace, but it is the mingling of them in
daily experience that results in defeat before sin. The secret of
victory, then, is to get entirely from under law and get wholly under
grace for the needs of the present moment. What does this mean? How can
it be done?
Probably no one has put more concisely and clearly the distinction
between the Old Covenant and the New than has Andrew Murray in his “Two
Covenants.” Under the Old Covenant, he points out, God says: “Obey me,
and I will be your God.” In the New Covenant God speaks in some such
words as these: “I will put my law in your heart, and ye shall obey
me.” In the Old Covenant, Andrew Murray says, there were two parties,
man and God. Man failed to keep his part of the agreement and the
covenant was broken. In the New Covenant there is only one party. God
undertakes the whole responsibility. The first is law. The second is
grace. If man has any responsibility in the second, except to receive
God’s provision through faith, then it is no longer of free grace.
A clear-thinking Presbyterian elder, a man of culture and trained mind,
who recently saw the truth of Christ as his victory for the first time,
was asked what he thought was the difference between the Old Covenant
of works and the New Covenant of Grace. Several verses of Scripture had
just been quoted which brought out the distinction. He was a man of
few words, and he answered by holding up two fingers of his left hand,
and one finger of his right hand. He had seen at once, five minutes
after entering into victory, what Andrew Murray makes the theme of his
helpful book on the Spirit-filled life,――that in the New Covenant it
is not man co-operating with God, but God assuming the whole work, and
doing it for man.
“I Could Not Live Up to It”
Another Presbyterian elder, also a clear thinker, a lawyer of ability,
was recently facing the question of the need of victory in his own
life. When the Scripture promises were presented to him, and he was
asked whether he would take victory, his reply was a decided “No.”
“Why won’t you?”
“Because I am not sure I could live up to it.”
He still had two parties in his contract. He was still thinking
under, and living under, the Old Covenant.
It sounds reasonable when a Christian says, “Of course, I am sure that
_Christ_ will always be faithful to his part, but the failure will
come because of _my_ weakness.” When a Christian says that, he is not
in victory; he has missed the very heart of the Victorious Life. He is
still under the Old Covenant. For God made the New Covenant with full
knowledge of that weakness of mine. Indeed _it was just because of that
weakness of mine that the New Covenant was made_. Had the weakness not
been there the Old Covenant would have sufficed. The New Covenant is of
no avail, and means nothing, if it is not to operate in spite of that
weakness.
Man’s Part in Victory Over Sin
If God does everything in the matter of my obeying the law, what is my
part? To do nothing. The human side of this New Covenant is to see that
self is kept from doing anything, so that Grace may work. It is the
effort of the self life, the human struggle described in Romans 7:7-24,
which prevents the victory of Grace.
But surely Grace on God’s part needs something on man’s side if it is
to be brought into touch with man. Yes, it needs to be told to man so
that he may hear it as a message of good tidings. “Belief cometh of
hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). The word of
good tidings to law-breaking Christians is that God has put his law in
our hearts so that we shall obey him.
What are we to do with the word of good tidings? Believe it. If we do
not believe that the law of the Spirit hath made us free from the law
of sin, our unbelief does not affect the truth of God’s word, but we
ourselves lose the benefit of those good tidings. “For indeed we have
had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of
hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with
them that heard” (Heb. 4:2).
“Obey” Becomes “Believe”
The “obey” of the Old Covenant has become in the New Covenant
“believe.” The responsibility for obedience has been taken entirely by
Christ, and man’s part is to believe that astounding fact. Christians
are still urged to obey, but always the spelling of that word is
“believe.”
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth
... having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, through the word of God.... But the word of the
Lord abideth for ever. And this is the word of good tidings which
was preached unto you.... For you therefore that believe is the
preciousness: but for such as disbelieve, ... A stone of stumbling, and
a rock of offence; for they stumble at the word, being disobedient.”
These scattered verses in the first and second chapters of First Peter
present the new spelling of the old “obey.” Obedience to the truth is
simply believing the word of good tidings, and they who stumbled at
the word were disobedient because they did not believe the word of
good tidings. It is a striking commentary that the King James Version
uses “disobedient” in 1 Peter 2:7, where the Revised Version reads
“disbelieve.”
If this change from law to Grace is simply a different putting of the
matter, leaving man’s responsibility the same, then indeed there is no
good tidings for the Christian in the matter of freedom from sin, and
the Victorious Life teaching is a myth. If telling us to believe is
just another way of asking us to obey, then are we no better off than
before, and we must await our resurrection bodies in order to enjoy
freedom from the law of sin against which we have been struggling. For
with all our mind and heart we may want to obey, but there is that
“different law in our members” preventing us from doing the things that
we would. What is the new factor in Grace that changes everything?
Is it something real, or something that I must produce by my own
understanding, just a new _attitude_ to the law?
Is Your Name in This Will?
It is something as real as the inheritance that a millionaire father
wills to his son. God gives us a will in the third chapter of
Galatians, and he speaks in it of an inheritance, and in words as
carefully chosen and as accurate as in a perfect human will he explains
who are the heirs in that will. The promise was given to Abraham and
to his seed, not “seeds” as of many; “but as of one, and to thy seed,
which is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). The closing verse of that will reveals
the importance of that distinction the Holy Spirit makes between the
singular and plural of the word seed. This distinction has puzzled
scholars and some have called it an example of Paul’s juggling with
words, but it need not puzzle any of the heirs whose names are in
this will. “And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs
according to promise.”
There is but one seed, Christ, and all that I am to get through this
will, I get because I am in him. What is the inheritance promised in
the will? If an earthly father knows how to will good gifts to his
children, what shall be said of the heavenly Father’s gift? The will
says that it is “the promise of the Spirit” and that it is through
faith (Gal. 3:14). The promise includes complete freedom from the law.
But does not the law also come from God? “Is the law then against the
promises of God?” is a most natural question, and it is asked in this
legal document which tells us of our inheritance. The answer to that
question contains one of the most significant statements in the whole
Word of God on the relation of law and grace: “God forbid: for if there
had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would
have been of the law” (Gal. 3:21).
Where “High Ideals” Fall Down
There is as much difference, then, between being under law and under
grace, as there is between a dead man and a live man. If a high ideal
could have given life, the word tells us, if God could have provided
a law which could make a dead man alive, Grace would not have been
needed, for righteousness would have been by the law. The free gift of
the New Covenant is a new LIFE. That is what the promise of the Spirit
provides. Does this give a vivid light upon Romans 8:2, “The law of
the Spirit ... made me free from the law of sin and of death?” And
the power of the law of the Spirit is the resurrection life of Christ
Jesus. So the complete verse reads, “The law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.”
The passage in Romans eight goes on to show how Jesus did for us the
thing we could not do, and that as a result of what he did, and is
doing through the Spirit, “the requirement of the law is fulfilled in
us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” If we are
appropriating the promise of the Spirit, our inheritance through faith,
_we are having fulfilled in us the law of God at this present moment_.
That is what the Word of God says. That is what happens when we are
under Grace and not under the law. Obedience to the law is guaranteed
while we are under Grace,――walking in the Spirit. Disobedience to the
law can come only when the Christian is living under law,――walking
after the flesh.
But, some one asks, is not a Christian always under Grace? He is, in
his _position_, and the Victorious Life is simply walking by faith in
that position won by Christ. “We believed on Christ Jesus, that we
might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law:
because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if,
while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found
sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build up
again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor”
(Gal. 2:16, 18).
A Christian Under Law
When a Christian sins, transgresses the law, he is building up that
which he has destroyed.
He is acting as though he were back under the law.
He is doing the deeds of the old man that has been crucified with
Christ.
He is denying the resurrection life of Christ which is in him.
He is walking after the flesh and not after the Spirit.
He is back on the basis of working instead of resting in the finished
work of Christ.
He is under the works of the law instead of the hearing of faith.
He is not standing fast in the freedom wherewith Christ has set him
free.
There is but one thing to be done in order to get back at once under
grace and the faith life,――confess the sin and take cleansing in the
blood of Jesus. This is wholly of Grace; no Christian would be so
foolish as to try to atone for his sin or to help the Lord Jesus do
a complete work of cleansing.
It is exactly the same sort of folly that leads the Christian to seek
to add his own effort in the business of winning victory over the next
temptation that assails him. “_If we live by the Spirit_ [if we have
been born again by the Spirit], _by the Spirit let us also walk_” (by
the same supernatural power let us live day by day and hour by hour,
letting God do it all by the Spirit) (Gal. 5:25).
God’s new spelling for “obey” is “believe.” And, as Mr. Trumbull put it
to a Christian who was grieving because she did not have the faith to
believe, “The faith for salvation is the faith for victory.” Faith is
just believing the word of God.
A Christian Under Grace
Have you believed the good tidings of future salvation and glory?
Believe the same good tidings for present salvation from sin.
If you are under grace, sin shall not have dominion; you are walking in
the Spirit.
Christ is dwelling in your heart by faith.
You are freed from the law with its works.
Yet the law of God is in your heart and it is your nature to keep it.
You are a new creation.
You are walking in newness of life.
You can finish the second chapter of Galatians as Paul finishes it:
“For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I
have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but
Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live
in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
himself up for me. I do not make void the grace of God” (Gal. 2:19-21).
WHEN TEMPTATION STRIKES
There is no state of grace that can be reached on earth which will
guard a man from being tempted. The Victorious Life is a life of
victory over temptation, but not a life of freedom from temptation.
Many a young Christian in the first flush of joy over new-found victory
has somehow felt that this glorious new liberty was indeed freedom
from temptation. For certain temptations have been taken completely
out of the life. Perhaps it was the taste for tobacco, and the desire
for smoking has been taken away. Or the questionable “border-line”
amusements (questionable only to border-line Christians),――dancing and
cards and the theater,――have completely lost their attractiveness and
offer no temptation.
But suddenly, some day, temptation strikes from an unexpected quarter,
and failure comes. It may be all over in a moment, but sin has
entered. Perhaps it was a sudden flash of impatience, or irritation,
or jealousy. Satan, close at hand, cunningly whispers, “You never had
the experience of the Victorious Life.... And you never will.” Or he
whispers that still more cunning word, “This higher life business is
all a mistake.” And so the soul that has taken Christ as victory is
often plunged into discouragement when the truth dawns that in the
Victorious Life _temptations multiply_.
In this problem of temptation in the Victorious Life, as in every other
conflict with our great Adversary, our safety must be found in the Word
of God.
“Can a Dead Man Be Tempted?”
A common error regarding temptation in the Christian life is the belief
that temptation is directed against a “sinful nature” within us. Some
months ago there was discussed in Notes on Open Letters in _The Sunday
School Times_ the question of an earnest seeker who had taken Christ as
his victory and was puzzled by this matter of temptation. He wrote:
How should temptation affect us? Christ had no sinful self
in his temptation to contend with. Adam before the fall had
not his sinful self to contend with; but we, since the fall,
have a sinful self, even though we are in victory, if I
understand rightfully. In Romans we read that the old man is
crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead
is freed from sin. If we are dead why should evil thoughts or
temptations of any kind find in us the slightest desire of
yielding to them? What should be the effect of feeling them?
A dead man has no life, has he?
Temptation is never aimed against a dead man, nor against evil in a
man. There is no meaning in “tempting evil.” There is no need for
Satan to direct attacks against that which is already on his side. It
is because we are alive and have power to sin that we are exhorted to
reckon ourselves dead to――separated from――sin, not dead to temptation.
Temptation Hits Natural Desires
Temptation is directed against the _human_ nature, and finds its
entrance through the natural desires and impulses of the body. That
is all Satan had to work upon in the case of Adam and Eve, and in the
case of “the last Adam,” our Lord himself. Both Adams were sinless
men before temptation came,――and “the last Adam” was sinless after
temptation came. But both lived in temptable bodies; and it is these
human bodies, not any sin nature dwelling in us, that make temptation
possible.
A lost man may have depraved and unnatural appetites, as the drink or
drug habit, which drop off at regeneration. But the natural appetites
remain, and through these temptation may come in many forms.
Satan has no other plan of temptation for Christians than that which he
tried successfully upon the first Adam and with disastrous failure upon
the last Adam. A study of these two conflicts with Satan reveals the
startling fact that all our multiplied temptations come to us through
three channels, and three only. If these citadels are held, victory
is certain. To understand this not only simplifies the problem of
temptation, but shows why certain _forms_ of temptation fall away from
the Christian who takes Christ as his victory, while _temptation_ in
many other forms remains.
Perhaps no one has summed up more concisely, in terms of everyday
experience, these three channels of temptation, than does Professor
Melvin Grove Kyle in his teaching on temptation in his seminary classes.
Our Three Desires
Dr. Kyle points out that man has three natural desires: (1) the desire
to enjoy things; (2) the desire to get things; (3) the desire to do
things.
These three cover the whole range of human desires. For the desire to
_enjoy_ things concerns everything that has to do with a man’s body.
The desire to _get_ things concerns everything that a man sees outside
of himself, the things that he can obtain in one way or another for
himself. The desire to _accomplish_ things includes everything that
goes out from the man to affect in one way or another that outside
world. Professor Kyle’s suggested definition of temptation is this:
“Temptation is the incitement of a natural desire to go beyond the
bound set by God.”
With this analysis before us, let us look into what happened when Satan
came to our first parents. Let it be remembered that none of these
three desires necessarily has to do with sin. Adam and Eve had these
desires before sin entered. Our Lord Jesus had these same natural human
desires.
Sin is doing something that God has told man not to do, or not doing
something that God has told him to do. Eve’s failure began, under
temptation, when she was willing to consider Satan’s questioning of
God’s word.
Eve’s Threefold Temptation
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it
was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to
make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.” There was
the threefold temptation. “She saw that the tree was good for food”;
her desire to enjoy things was incited, and she faced the question of
satisfying in an unlawful way that desire for enjoyment. She saw that
the fruit was “a delight to the eyes”: her desire to get the attractive
thing she saw was incited, and she faced the question of whether she
should satisfy that desire in a way that God had forbidden. Finally she
saw that the tree was “to be desired to make one wise.” Satan had told
her that she and her husband would be as God if they ate the fruit.
Her desire to accomplish things took the form of reaching out after
equality with God.
Now turn for a moment to the analysis of sin and temptation that the
Holy Spirit gives in 1 John 2:16: “For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of
life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Here is an inclusive
statement of all that is in the world. The apostle is stating here the
only three ways in which it is possible for a man to sin. Note that
they are the three points at which Eve failed.
When the desire to _enjoy things_ goes beyond the bounds set by God it
becomes “the lust of the flesh.” The lawful desire to _get things_,
when it turns into sin, becomes “the lust of the eyes.” When the desire
_to do things_ leads a man away from God, it becomes “the vainglory [or
the pride] of life.”
Dr. Kyle points out in his study of temptation that Eve fell at _every_
point of her nature, and sinned in “the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, and the vainglory of life.” He notes also that the lust of
the eyes and the pride of life had no immediate outlet of expression
for Adam and Eve, situated as they were in the midst of a world that
was all theirs, and so the sin found immediate expression in some form
of the lust of the flesh. Yet man had yielded and sinned at all three
points.
Tempting Our Sinless Lord
Turning now from the luxurious garden to the barren wilderness, the
same Tempter comes to our Lord Jesus, the last Adam, when he was hungry
after his fasting of forty days and forty nights; and the Tempter came
with the same three appeals. Our Lord Jesus had the natural desire to
enjoy food for his body. He was hungry, and the desire was right. But
the Tempter asked him to satisfy that hunger in a wrong way. Satan
again begins his attack by a question. He does not hold before Christ
the temptation to _become_ as God. He raises the question as to whether
he is the Son of God, and suggests that this be proved by making use of
the omnipotence of the Creator to satisfy his own human needs. It was
far more subtle than the appeal to Eve’s desire to enjoy the fruit; but
at the bottom it was an attack on the Word of God. Our Lord’s answer
not only checkmates the Tempter, but states a profound truth by which
his brethren may enter into victory under similar temptations. “Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God.”
Our Lord had a natural desire to get things. What he desired to get was
“all the kingdoms of the world.” They belonged to him. He came to earth
to secure them. Satan strikes at this perfectly right desire to get
things by showing our Lord all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory
of them, “and he said unto him, All these things will I give thee if
thou wilt fall down and worship me.” The desire to get these kingdoms
was right; but the temptation was to get them in some way not of God’s
ordering. Making a step outside the will of God always means exchanging
the worship of God for the worship of Satan; and so our Lord answers:
“Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
Our Lord also had that third desire, the desire to accomplish things.
The work he came to accomplish was to bring redemption――to the Jew
first, and also to the Gentile. He came to his own with the desire that
they should recognize him as the One sent from God, their Messiah.
Satan strikes at this right desire, and presents to Jesus a quick way
to accomplish this purpose. But again it is a way with a question mark
regarding God’s Word.
It has been suggested that the thought here is that Jesus could prove
to the multitude gathered below in the temple court that he was indeed
the Son of God when this Messianic prophecy was fulfilled before their
eyes in such a startling way. The reply of our Lord is significant.
“Again it is written, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God.”
This quotation from Deuteronomy 6:16 refers back to the incident at
Rephidim when the children of Israel made trial of Jehovah by saying:
“Is Jehovah among us, or not?” (Exod. 17:7.) So Satan asked Jesus to
prove that God’s Word was indeed true, and settle the fact that he was
the Son of God and that Jehovah was indeed with him.
As our first parents fell at all three points of attack, so our Lord
won the victory at every point. Borrowing again an illuminating
suggestion from Dr. Kyle’s study of the subject, we have here the real
explanation of that word concerning our Lord that he was tempted in all
points like as we are. He was tempted on every side of his nature. He
did not necessarily meet every individual form of temptation that has
come to other men, but he did meet the Adversary at these three points,
which comprise all the possible area of temptation.
The victory over temptation has been won. His victory is a guarantee of
our triumph over every form of temptation that can ever meet us. It is
ours to choose whether we shall share in that victory already won by
our Elder Brother, or be united with the first Adam in his defeat.
THE CONQUEST OF TEMPTATION
The Word of God never offers freedom from temptation. But it does offer
to Christians victory over all temptation. One of Satan’s lies that has
been accepted as almost an axiom in the thinking and the experience
of Christians is that no one can expect victory over every one of his
temptations. But God says: “There hath _no_ temptation taken you but
such as man can bear: But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to
be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make
also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it” (1 Cor.
10:13). It is significant that this verse is immediately preceded by a
word of warning: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed
lest he fall.”
There is ever before the Christian the possibility of falling. There is
no state of grace from which he may not, before some temptation, step
into awful sin. But God’s Word, which cannot be broken, stands pledged
to us that in _every_ temptation there is “the way of escape.” And our
Lord Jesus is “the Way.” Victory over temptation was won by Christ.
Satan is an already defeated foe. Defeat in temptation came to Adam. It
is for every man, and every Christian, to decide whether he will share
the first Adam’s defeat or the last Adam’s victory.
The two great temptation scenes pictured in the Bible, that of our
first parents and that of our Lord, show that temptation finds its way
into the human heart through three avenues. When man falls before these
temptations the resulting sins are what the Apostle describes as “the
lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life.”
Let us see how this Bible picture of the sins that are in the world
corresponds with conditions in the twentieth century.
Africa’s Three Sins
A missionary recently back from the heart of Africa was describing some
of the intimate things that she had learned regarding the natives.
As she spoke of the daily life of the natives, and told of the chief
problems of missionary work, there were three outstanding sins that
were emphasized. There is the gross immorality, which came up for
mention in connection with the description of the tribal dances and
what they lead to. There is the grasping after possessions, a tendency
to covetousness that is so deeply imbedded in their natures that
the missionaries need to exercise the greatest care in dealing with
new converts. This native quality came vividly to the missionary’s
mind when she was speaking of the native Christian evangelists and
the problem of compensating them in such a way that the old cupidity
will not be aroused. A third characteristic of the native in all the
villages is his consuming desire to secure a high place in the “Four
Hundred” of his tribe. There are distinct social honors, and for many
of the young men the passion of life is to win these honors.
This missionary had no intention of analyzing the outstanding sins
of the natives, but these three things naturally came before her as
she described their daily life. And these three comprise “all that is
in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the
vainglory of life.”
Put into briefer form these three sins are lust, covetousness, pride.
All sin comes under one or other of these three classes.
America’s Three Sins
These three are the outstanding sins of America. Dan Crawford came out
of Africa into civilization just about the time the “newer” forms
of dancing were having their first popularity. He made the startling
statement that he had seen all of these unspeakably vile dances in
pagan Africa. In America, he said, they were only in a new setting.
Essentially they were the same, and _they were for the same purpose_.
What we call the gross sin of the African flourishes in every civilized
land.
Those who read a business man’s article, published several years ago in
_The Sunday School Times_, on “The Sin That We Are Afraid to Mention,”
will not soon forget his arraignment of the awful sin of covetousness,
“which is idolatry.” And it was _in the Christian church_ that this
layman found the black sin that Christians keep quiet about. What then
shall be said of covetousness in the business world?
There is finally that climax of all sins of America, and of man, the
sin of pride, most subtle and most pervading of all, the sin that will
culminate in man’s final defiance of God. Saddest of all, it is this
sin which appears at its ugliest when it takes the form of spiritual
pride in the life of one who is zealous to serve God and to be wholly
yielded to him.
In a message that S. D. Gordon gave on temptation he remarked that
there are three chief avenues by which Satan reaches men. He stated
the three in these brief words: “Sex,” “Money,” “I.” It is exactly
the classification that God makes in his Word. If, by his grace, we
get victory at these three points, then indeed are we free from the
dominion of sin.
So much for the _sin_ that results when man falls before one or another
of these temptations. But what of the temptations themselves? How do
they affect a Christian who is trusting Christ for victory? What is the
practical bearing on the common temptations that meet us in everyday
life? Then there is the final, most important question, what is the
way to prevent these desires from conceiving and bringing forth sin?
Why Not Freedom from Temptation?
A _Sunday School Times_ reader has written of his experience. “It is
not a temptation for me to take a glass of beer; there is nothing in me
that requires or desires it; but sometimes it might be and has been a
strong temptation to get impatient, which I have yielded to at times.
Why should one be any more a temptation than the other, provided I am
in victory over all sin?”
Careful distinction must be made between temptation itself and the form
that the temptation may take. The appeal to a man’s natural desires
may change its form, but always, in every part of his nature, he will
be tempted while he is in this mortal body. The desire for beer which
leads to intemperance and sin is an appeal to a natural appetite. Sin
is moral, and does not reside in the physical appetites, which are
merely the channels for the temptation and sin. A man who has been
in bondage to drink may through the power of Christ completely lose
that desire and have no further temptation to that particular form of
appetite. But the temptation to intemperance remains. For the natural
appetites remain. While the appetite may give up this taste or that,
and thus be dead to certain _forms_ of temptation, the Christian is
always liable to the temptation to go contrary to the will of God, in
satisfying these natural appetites of the body: hunger, the sacred
sex desire, and all the natural impulses of the body that may seek
expression in lawful ways.
The _Times_ reader compares his freedom from the temptation to drink
with the appeal that is made to him to get impatient. But strictly
speaking, one is never tempted to be impatient. No one desires to be
impatient, and Satan could not use any incentive to such a temptation.
Yet we sometimes speak of these temptations to irritability, jealousy,
loss of temper, as though there were some secret springs in our nature
labeled “Impatience,” “Irritability,” and like qualities, and that
the temptation consisted in Satan touching these springs and causing
the sin. A business man does not lose his temper for the sake of the
pleasure it gives him. It may be an intense desire to have justice that
has led to his outbreak against some one who has dealt unfairly. The
temptation has come along the line of some natural desire. So with the
housekeeper who is irritated with her maid over some bit of stupidity,
or the young girl who is “blue” and moody because her plans for the
day’s enjoyment have been upset.
Temptation Remains――Its Form Changes
Thus it is that while a Christian who yields utterly to God and accepts
Christ as his victory may instantly be free from even the temptation
to drink, or to smoke, or to indulge in worldly amusements, or to
do a hundred and one things that he has been accustomed to do, the
temptations to the root-sins of lust and covetousness and pride _will
remain with him_. They will take more subtle forms. Satan cannot tempt
him now in the grosser, worldly way. He will now take advantage of this
one’s very zeal for God, and will make appeal to his earnest devotion
to God’s service to lead into sins of impatience and irritation and
jealousy and pride.
In the face of these temptations, what is the guarantee against failure
which the victorious Christian has, and which the man of the world
knows nothing of? When a Christian wholly yields his life to the
mastery of the Lord Jesus he has still the desire to enjoy things, the
desire to get things, and the desire to accomplish things. Christ does
not kill the natural desires. _It is the old self-life that Christ
wants to put to death._ That is why a Christian must share in present
experience the crucifixion-death of his Lord before he can share his
victory over temptation. This is what surrender of self means for
the Christian who desires victory. He must, moment by moment, reckon
himself to be dead unto sin. He is not dead to temptation, for his
natural human desires are still there.
Desires Remain――Their Object Changes
In the Christian who has learned the full secret of victory these
natural desires are lifted to a new plane. His desires now do not
center in the old self-life. They center in Christ. To him to live is
Christ. His whole desire is Christ. He still desires to enjoy things,
but only in a way that shall glorify God. He desires to get things, but
to get them for God, not for self. His desire to accomplish things is
to do things for God.
This does not mean that the victorious Christian will not be open
to fierce temptations, just as our Lord was,――real temptations that
require a real conquest. But as he abides in Christ, accepting by
faith the victory that Christ already has won, instead of striving to
struggle against these assaults of the enemy, the temptations remain
merely _temptations_, and do not pass into the _sins_ of lust or
covetousness or pride.
These three channels of temptation appear to correspond in a remarkable
way with the three-fold nature of man――body, soul and spirit. And for
the man in victory all these are Christ’s. Here is the human body with
all the natural appetites intact. But the Christian who is reckoning
the old self-life to be dead knows that this body now, with all its
natural desires, is “for the Lord; and the Lord for the body” (1 Cor.
6:13), for “Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit
that is in you, that ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye
were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body” (1 Cor.
6:19, 20).
The Secret of the Single Eye
There are in the victorious Christian not only the desires of the body
but the desires of the soul. For may we not say that the sin of “the
lust of the eye” is a sin of the “soulish” part of a man’s nature? It
concerns his desire to acquire the things that he sees. To the natural
man these things are riches to be obtained for himself. “He that hath
an evil eye hasteth after riches” (Proverbs 28:22). The wise man here
connects covetousness and “the evil eye.” Let us hear the words of
the Master of wise men: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the
earth, where moth and rust doth consume and where thieves break through
and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor
steal: for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also. The
lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy
whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole
body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee
be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters:
for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will
hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon”
(Matthew 6:19-24).
Here is the clear choice. The desire to get the riches we see may
become the lust of the eye, covetousness, the servant of mammon. But
the Christian abiding in Christ has a “single eye,” that is, he has
but one passion, to lay up treasure in heaven. He has not a doubtful
mind as to whether he may grasp after this or that. He has but a single
question, as his eye is single, and that is how may he glorify God in
his getting? He makes use indeed of the mammon of unrighteousness, but
not for self’s sake,――for the sake of Another.
The Most Subtle Sin
May we not call the most subtle sin of all, the sin of pride, a sin of
the spirit? The victorious Christian still has the desire to accomplish
things. Indeed this desire is intensified a thousandfold. To the
natural man this desire centers wholly in self, whether he knows it or
not. But one in whom the old self-life is dead cries with Paul, “God
forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal.
6:14). With the psalmist he sings: “My soul shall make her boast in
Jehovah: The meek shall hear thereof, and be glad. O, magnify Jehovah
with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:2, 3). “In God
have we made our boast all the day long, and we will give thanks unto
thy name forever” (Psalm 44:8). This sort of boasting leads not to self
pride but to meekness. “Thus saith Jehovah, Let not the wise man glory
in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not
the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in
this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me, that I am Jehovah, who
exercise lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth”
(Jeremiah 9:23).
All desires of life, then, for the Christian who abides in victory,
center in Christ. “And whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in
the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through
him” (Col. 3:17).
And conquest of temptation is not a negative matter. Love is the
fulfilling of the law, and only the heart filled with that love which
is Christ can know freedom from lust, covetousness, and pride. Back of
these three outward sins, there is the inward nature which has departed
from God. Perhaps no one in our day has pointed out more clearly the
three great sins of omission than has Miss Louisa Vaughan, of China.
She calls these the “Christian sins”: Failure to love the Lord our God
with all our heart and strength and mind; failure to love one another
as Christ loved us; failure to believe on Christ so that the works that
he did and greater works than these should be wrought through us. These
Christian sins, Miss Vaughan insists, must be confessed and cleansed
in the blood of Jesus before the fulness of the Spirit can be enjoyed.
To have these commandments fulfilled in us is the Victorious Life. And
only when this root-condition of unlove and unbelief (which are really
one, for “love believeth all things”) is dealt with shall we know
freedom from lust and covetousness and pride.
HOW JESUS LIVED THE VICTORIOUS LIFE
In what sense was Jesus a man as we are? We read that he was tempted in
all points like as we are, yet without sin. But have you ever asked, Of
what comfort or strength is it to me that he was tempted in all points
as I am, _if he was without sin_? It is just because _I am not without
sin_ that I fall before these temptations.
Is it true after all that the Lord Jesus was a man as I am?
Was not the real secret of his victory over sin the fact that he was
God?
Is not the secret of my defeat the fact that I am just a man and not
God?
The answer to these questions reveals one of the richest secrets in the
Word concerning the real meaning of the Victorious Life. For we shall
find this startling truth, that if we are to live the Victorious Life
at all we must live it by the same rule as Jesus of Nazareth lived it.
Christ had to come to earth to show us what man is like. A needed
emphasis has been put upon the truth that our Lord came to earth to
reveal the Father,――to show men what God is like. But it was just as
necessary that our Lord should reveal what God intended _man_ to be.
If we wish to know what God is like there is but one thing to do: look
at Jesus. So there is no way of discovering what a true man is like
except by looking at Jesus. He is the only “man,” in the true sense of
the word, who has lived since sin entered the human race. Through the
fall man lost the image of God, and from that day until our Lord came
there was no example of man as God intended him to be.
A mistaken notion, encouraged by the poets, prevails quite commonly,
that to sin is human; to forgive, divine. Whatever the measure of truth
in the little sentiment, the error in it is more dangerous. To sin is
not human; it is devilish. Sin is no part of man as God planned him to
be. And so our Lord represents in himself what God intended a man to
be, and he lived according to that plan.
The One True “Man”
The name for himself most often upon the lips of our Master was “the
Son of man.” A notable Greek scholar has recently pointed out that
this expression means far more than a son of a human parent. It rather
suggests that gathered up into this Son of man are all the qualities of
what “man” is. So, may we not say that as the fulness of God dwelt in
him bodily so did the fulness of man dwell in him?
Some one has suggested that God did wonderful things through the Lord
Jesus not because Jesus was God, but because he was perfect man. What
does this really mean in terms of our everyday life?
Nowhere in Scripture is there such a remarkable setting forth, first of
the deity of our Lord, then of his humanity, side by side, as in the
first and second chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “God, having
of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions
and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in
a Son.”
“Very God of Very God”
Thus the wonderful epistle opens; and then that Son is presented first
as one who expresses the very image of the substance of God. He is
compared with angels, and shown to be infinitely above them. God the
Father speaks of his angels as messengers; he addresses the Son: “thy
throne, _O God_.” In the second chapter again are angels compared, this
time with man. The same Son is shown to be made for a little while
lower than the angels, taking the form of man.
In this first chapter of Hebrews the Holy Spirit, when he seeks to
attest the truth that Jesus is God, calls the Old Testament to witness,
and two groups of three quotations each are made, each time the words
being put in the mouth of God the Father. In the second chapter when
the Spirit seeks to press home the parallel truth that Jesus is a
man, one with us, he uses a group of three quotations from the Old
Testament. In these quotations we shall discover something of the
preciousness for us of the truth that the Lord Jesus was a man, one
with his brethren. “For both he that sanctifieth and they that are
sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call
them brethren, saying ...” (Heb. 2:11).
Then there follow in the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the second
chapter of Hebrews the three quotations from the Old Testament.
This is the first:
“I will declare thy name unto my brethren,
In the midst of the congregation will I sing thy praise.”
One With Our Lord in Resurrection
This is the twenty-second verse of the twenty-second Psalm, the
Crucifixion Psalm. But the twenty-second Psalm is more than a
crucifixion Psalm; it is a resurrection Psalm as well. This
twenty-second verse that the Spirit uses to prove that Jesus is one
with us is the first verse of the resurrection half of the Psalm. When
our Lord rose from the dead he said, “Go unto my brethren, and say to
them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God”
(John 20:17). This was the first time that our Lord linked those words
“my Father and your Father.” For in his resurrection he was in a new
way “the firstborn of many brethren.” “Thou art my Son, this day have
I begotten thee,” was not spoken of the eternal generation of the Son
of God, the living Word who was not begotten on a day but was before
all time. Neither do the words refer to the glad day when the babe was
born of the Virgin. They refer to that glad resurrection day when in a
new way he declared God’s name unto his brethren. This is made clear
in Acts 13:32, 33: “And we bring you good tidings of the promise made
unto the fathers, that God hath fulfilled the same unto our children,
in that he raised up Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm,
Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.”
We are one with our elder Brother, then, in death and resurrection,
and here is the death-blow to Satan’s lie of universal brotherhood and
universal fatherhood. The firstborn of many brethren is brother only to
those who share in his death that they may share also in his new birth.
One With Our Lord as Witnesses
The third word from the Old Testament quoted in the second chapter
of Hebrews which attests the humanity of our Lord is this: “Behold,
I and the children whom God hath given me.” These words from Isaiah
8:18 were originally from the lips of Isaiah, who said: “Behold, I
and the children whom God hath given are for signs and for wonders
in Israel for Jehovah of hosts.” Dr. W. J. Erdman once remarked that
when Isaiah’s two sons walked along the streets of Jerusalem they were
living sermons for the children of Israel to read. The name of one
was “Mahershalal-hash-baz,” and whenever an Israelite looked upon
this son he heard God saying to him “the spoil speedeth, the prey
hasteth.” If he believed God he knew that this was a prophecy of the
terrific judgment of God that was to fall on a sinning nation. Isaiah’s
other son was “Shear-jashub,” or “the remnant shall return,” and the
discerning Israelite who could read this sermon aright saw in it the
glad hope of God’s grace in the day of judgment saving a remnant of
those who put their trust in him. The name of the father of these two
sons, “Isaiah,” means “the salvation of Jehovah.”
Evidently the thought is that our Lord and we, his brethren, are still
for signs and wonders in setting forth the salvation of Jehovah in its
two phases, of terrific judgment that is to come upon a disobedient
world and the glad message of salvation to the remnant who shall
believe.
The second quotation from the Old Testament used in the second chapter
of Hebrews to prove our Lord’s true humanity is in these remarkable
words: “I will put my trust in him.” How can this quotation have any
bearing on the fact that he is our brother and that he lived down here
as a man?
The Heart-Throbs of Our Human Lord
The quotation is from the second verse of Psalm eighteen: “The Lord
is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength,
in whom I will trust.” These originally are “the words of David,
the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this
song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his
enemies, and from the hand of Saul.” But, as a noted Bible teacher has
pointed out, the Holy Spirit put into the mouth of David words that
went infinitely beyond his own experience, words that could only be
fulfilled in their true meaning when the greater Son of David came and
met the forces of evil that were faintly foreshadowed by the enemies
David met.
Read through the eighteenth Psalm as the words of the Lord Jesus. It is
an inspired description of the awful conflict of the powers of darkness
against the Son of man, when he tasted death for every man. Have you
ever wondered why there were not given to us in the four Gospels more
intimate glimpses of the human heart-throbs of Jesus? Have you wished
that you might enter somewhat into the meaning of Gethsemane, rather
than to have him go into the garden alone? Read in the eighteenth and
other Messianic Psalms the human heart-throbs of the Son of man.
“I love thee, O Jehovah, my strength.
Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
My God, my rock, in whom I will take refuge;
My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
I will call upon Jehovah, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from mine enemies.
The cords of death compassed me,
And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid.
The cords of Sheol were round about me;
The snares of death came upon me.”
HIS Secret of Victory
Read on in the Psalm the description of this conflict with the
supernatural powers of evil, and find in it the secret of our Lord’s
victory over them. _He did not count upon any strength in himself. He
looked to another._ He was a man, and if there was to be any strength
in him for victory over that supernatural enemy, that strength must
come from another. The secret of our Lord’s victory was just this: “I
will put my trust in him.”
The Holy Spirit made no mistake in his selection of Old Testament
passages when he wished to show that it behooved this Saviour of ours
“in all things to be made like unto his brethren,” and that “in that he
himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are
tempted” (Heb. 2:17, 18).
Jesus lived the Victorious Life, not because he was God, but because
he was perfect man; he lived as God planned that man should live.
In a very true sense (though the statement would need certain
qualification), our Lord took to himself no more advantage in the
matter of winning victory over temptations than have we, his brethren.
Why He Emptied Himself
But _he_ was _God_. Yes, all the fulness of the Godhead was in him,
or he could not have made atonement for the sins of his brethren. But
remember that Christ Jesus emptied himself. This does not mean that
he ceased in any sense to be God. But there was something that he had
as God, in glory with the Father, that he did not have as the God-man
living here on earth. He was rich up there; he was poor down here (2
Cor. 8:9). Of what did Jesus empty himself? He emptied himself of
the glory that he had with the Father before the world was. The full
meaning of that none of us can fathom. But here again there is a very
practical application to our everyday living of this profound doctrine
of the humiliation of our Lord:
He emptied himself of that which would have prevented him, in the
days of his suffering on earth, from being a true Son of man.
Jesus voluntarily gave up that inherent power that was his as God, and
lived his life as God intended that man should live his life, _in utter
dependence on a power not his own_.
When man fell, his sin was a declaration of independence of God. He
thus made impossible the living of a true man’s life, for an essential
part of a man’s life is to live moment by moment in utter dependence on
another, his Maker.
That is why our Lord constantly pointed _away from himself_. “The Son
can do nothing of himself” (John 5:19). “I can of myself do nothing: as
I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine
own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 5:30). “I do nothing
of myself, but as the Father taught me, I speak these things” (John
8:28). “The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but
the Father abiding in me doeth his works” (John 14:10). Our Lord here
speaks as the Son of man, not coming in his own name, or living in his
own name, but in the name and by the power of Another dwelling within
him.
The Son of Man’s Watchword
The secret of the Son of man, plainly written across the record of his
earthly conflicts, is surrender and faith. “Not I, but the Father.” And
“as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21).
The Son of man’s watchword is, “I will put my trust in him.” Only man
can say that. Glorified God cannot say that.
Whenever man says, “I will put my trust in Him,” and means it, all the
omnipotence of the risen and indwelling Lord of resurrection life is
available for him, and victory is certain.
SERVING WITH “THE MIND OF CHRIST”
“Truly he was the servant of all,” said a friend of J. Hudson Taylor’s
as he concluded a narration of some incidents in the life of the great
missionary in China. Hudson Taylor was like his Master. Only in so far
as the service of any of us Christians is after the example of our Lord
is it real service.
In the study of “How Jesus Lived the Victorious Life,” it was seen that
Christ emptied himself in order that he might live as a man and open
the way for his brethren to win the victory _in the same way that he
won it_. Jesus lived down here as God intended a man should live――in
utter, moment by moment, dependence upon Another, and in the last study
it was pointed out that our Victory motto must be the motto that Jesus
lived by: “I will put my trust in _Him_.” It is our purpose now to view
this truth in particular relation to the service of a Christian, and
to examine more closely the meaning of Christ’s “emptying” that we may
know wherein he was our example in service.
It is not primarily the acts in the life of Jesus that furnish us our
example in service. Many of the recorded activities of Christ, the
things he did and the things he said, are by their very nature,――their
uniqueness,――deeds and words that we cannot imitate. It is the mind of
Christ we are to have. Then shall we have the secret of the spirit and
the power of his service.
The great passage in the second chapter of Philippians on the
humiliation of our Lord deals with profound mysteries of the eternal
world, yet it touches in the most vital way the everyday life and
service of the Christian. It concerns the sending of Christ Jesus out
of Glory with the Father into the world of men and sin. How startling,
then, that our Lord should take such a sublime event, which goes too
deep for utterance, and bring it to our very doorsteps, when he says:
“As the Father hath sent me into the world even so send I you into the
world.”
“Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus,” the Apostle
enjoins. What is “this mind”? How are we to have it? Paul goes on to
describe it: “Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being
on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and
being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient
unto death, yea, the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).
The Mind of Satan
Something of the significance of this sublime passage and the verses
that immediately follow, will be seen if we place beside it another
picture which also concerns the mysteries of the eternal world and the
throne of God. It is found in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah: “How
art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning! how art
thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations! And thou
saidst in thy heart, I WILL ascend into heaven, I WILL exalt my throne
above the stars of God; and I WILL sit upon the mount of congregation,
in the uttermost parts of the north: I WILL ascend above the heights of
the clouds; I WILL make myself like the Most High” (Isa. 14:12-14).
This is a portion of “a parable against the king of Babylon.” In it we
have undoubtedly the picture of the great Adversary of the Lord Jesus
Christ, Satan, the highest of created beings; here is a glimpse of his
fall and the secret of it. So striking is the contrast that it is hard
to escape the conviction that the Spirit intended this to be related
to the passage in Philippians that tells of our Lord’s emptying. This
contrast is one that runs from beginning to end through the Scriptures,
which are, indeed, the record of the conflict between these two beings,
the Son of God who became also the Son of man, and the “son of the
morning,” who became the son of uttermost darkness.
Pride Incarnate and Humility Incarnate.
The Son of God was the Word, who was in the beginning with God, and was
God. But though he possessed that equality he did not esteem it a thing
to be grasped after, but he emptied himself of the glory that was his
own. The other glorious being, exalted though he was among the hosts
of God, was not in the form of God; he was but a creature of the Most
High. But he essayed to grasp the equality that was not his: “I will
make myself like the Most High.” Mark now the terrific climax in each
of these descriptions. The Son of God in becoming the Son of man took
step after step in his humiliation, lower and lower, until he touched
the bottom in the cursed death of the cross: “becoming obedient unto
death, yea, the death of the cross.” Then immediately follows this
word: “Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the
name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under
the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father.” Satan sought to climb higher and higher
until his ambition reached after the Godhead: “I will make myself like
the Most High.” Immediately follows this word: “Thou shalt be brought
down to hell, to the uttermost parts of the pit.”
There is more in the passages, however, than these two tremendous
contrasts of humiliation and attempted exaltation, and then of
exaltation and uttermost destruction. Jesus told his followers that
he was sending them into the world as the Father sent him. His great
Adversary likewise sends men into the world to carry out the spirit
of his ambition. So he came to our first parents in the garden, and
the temptation was that they should imitate him in seeking to be like
God. They fell before the temptation and the sin was, essentially, a
declaration of independence of God. From that day on every sin, whether
the sin of an unbeliever or the sin of a born-again Christian, has
resulted because of this independence of God. The conflict of that
eternal world has thus been projected into the world of men. The Son
of God and the Prince of demons are contending for this world, and
the principles underlying the conflict are clearly set forth in these
passages that have been before us.
Satan’s Coming Man
This conflict is to have a climax. The sin of man will head up in the
Man of Sin. This is he who shall come in the spirit and power of Satan,
the false Messiah. Jesus forewarned of his coming, when he said: “I am
come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come
in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:43). The Isaiah passage
describes not only the scene in heaven when Satan reached after the
throne of God, but it foreshadows the Man of Sin on earth, “the son
of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that
is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple
of God, setting himself forth as God ... even he, whose coming is
according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that perish;
because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be
saved. And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that
they should believe a lie” (2 Thess. 2:3, 4, 9-11).
Man’s Final Religion
The spirit of Satan, then, finds its climax in the worship of man,
rather than the worship of God. Here is the heart of all sin. This is
the central lie of Satan by which he deceives men. The final religion
of man, before the coming of the Lord Jesus to earth again, will be the
religion of humanity, the worship of man as the only deity. Paul brings
all men who reject God’s revelation under this condemnation: “They
exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the
creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.”
We have been speaking of the great conflict of the ages between Jesus
and his Adversary, the conflict that underlies the raging of the
nations to-day, as Satan works out his plan to put the creature in the
place of the Creator, to send that one, inspired of Satan, who will
come in his own name and who will be received because he comes as man.
But this same conflict goes on in each individual life.
Every man, because God has given him free will, must make his choice
as to which of these he will follow, the Son of man, or the Man of
Sin. Even the Christian, who has made his choice, will find constantly
before him the possibility of serving in the spirit of his Lord or in
the spirit of Satan.
When the Christian is not serving after the example of the Lord
Jesus, let him ponder this well,――that he is serving after the spirit
of Satan. How startled must Peter have been when the Lord not only
told him he savored of the things of men (the spirit of Satan),
but actually addressed him as Satan, knowing that it was the great
Adversary he was meeting again in one of his loved disciples. Very
often is it true of Christians that “ye know not what spirit ye are
of.” Is it too much to say that much of the service that is being
offered to-day in the name of Christ, by followers of His, is mixed
with the spirit of the evil one?
Testing Our Service
What is that spirit of the evil one? It is written large in the two
words that stand out in that Isaiah passage: “I WILL.” Set these words
against those other words: “Not my will, but thine.” Now let us set
these words against our own Christian service and answer the question
as to whether it is after the example of the Son of man. What is it to
have the mind of Christ?
In three respects is there danger that our Christian service shall lack
the mind of Christ. We may work zealously _in the energy of the flesh_.
The old self-life is not reckoned dead, crucified with Christ. If we
have the mind of Christ we must become conformed to his death, even
as he was obedient unto the death of the cross. There are thousands
of Christians who are doing good things but doing them in the energy
of the flesh, without the Spirit of God. If we would have the mind of
Christ we must have that old self-life crucified, for Christian service
done in the flesh cannot please God.
Consecrated Christians who have really surrendered the old self-life
may work zealously _in the energy of the soul_. There is the danger of
forcing results that look good but are really not the product of the
Spirit of God. Service after the example of Christ is done wholly by
the power of Another. He said “not my will, but thine,” and was ready
to hold to this when the following of the will of God seemed to mean
failure. There is the danger that Christian workers to-day, lured
by the example of the success of the children of the world in their
undertakings, will go after the same sort of great, showy results in
the eyes of men, in their spiritual matters. This is not after the
mind of Christ, but partakes of that other mind which says “I WILL.”
The mind of Christ will care for no results except those that are the
product of the Spirit. And in securing these the eyes will not be
upon results but upon the Master, to seek his will in every matter of
service, leaving with him the results and the rewards.
Defilement of the Spirit
The third danger, most subtle of all, and pervading all, is pride,
the exaltation of the human. And this is the temptation that Satan
often successfully uses upon the spiritual Christian who has gotten
beyond serving in the energy of the flesh or in the energy of the
soul. We must cleanse ourselves of all defilement of flesh _and of
spirit_. Serving “in lowliness of mind, each counting other better than
himself,”――this is to have the mind of Christ. Serving in love that
envieth not, that vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, that _seeketh
not its own_,――this is to have the mind of Christ. It is at the other
pole from pride.
How are we to have the mind of Christ? Not by looking at him as an
example and trying to imitate him. There is real hopelessness in singing
Trying to walk in the steps of the Saviour,
Trying to follow our Saviour and King,
Shaping our lives by his blessed example....
For that is just what we cannot do――shape our lives by his example.
When we are ready to stop “trying” to do this, and will yield
ourselves that we may be conformed to his death, then our trying may be
changed to trusting, we can “leave the miracle to him,” and returning
to the beautiful hymn whose first verse makes a bad start, we can sing
with new meaning the opening lines of the third verse:
Walking by faith in the steps of our Saviour,
Upward, still upward, we’ll follow our Guide.
THE SECOND COMING AND VICTORY
The next great event in God’s program for the redemption of the world
is the coming again to the earth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The last
chapter of the Old Testament points forward to his second coming.
The last recorded words of the Lord Jesus are his words of promise,
“Surely, I come quickly,” in the last chapter of the New Testament. The
last recorded prayer of God’s people in the Word is the answer of their
heart to this promise, “Even so come, Lord Jesus.”
The last word of the Old Testament is the word “curse,”――“lest I come
and smite the earth with a curse.” The central word of the last verse
in the New Testament is “grace.” He will come with the judgments of his
curse and with the revelation of his grace.
Are You Ready for His Coming?
Among the many signs that seem to point to the nearness of his coming
there is none more striking than the movement of the Spirit in
separating the children of God from the things of the world and making
them hungry for the things of eternity. There are many sad evidences of
falling away, and of increasing worldliness on the part of large masses
of professing Christians, but these make all the more notable that
deep hunger for victory in Christ and conformity to his likeness which
increasing numbers of Christians are sharing. Is this the work of the
Spirit in making a little flock ready for his coming? Are _you_ ready?
The coming of Christ is the great incentive to holiness that is held
before Christians in the New Testament. “Every one that hath this hope
[the hope of his coming] set on him [set on Jesus] purifieth himself,
even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).
There are many motives by which the Lord lovingly urges us to seek
complete victory in him. We long for a life of joy and peace that we do
not have. We long to be rid of a life of struggle against “besetting
sins.” Or we are eager to have power in service and get results for
Christ that are largely absent in our experience. By this or that
motive the Spirit leads us to an earnest seeking of God’s secret of
the life of faith. But beyond all these motives is that supreme desire
to be well pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave
himself for us. “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he
shall appear, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before him at
his coming” (1 John 2:28).
Boldness Before Him Then and Now
The one way to be ready for his coming, to have boldness and not to be
ashamed, is to abide in him. “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not”
(1 John 3:6); to be cleansed from sin and to abide in that cleansing
makes us ready for his coming. If we are not enjoying the Victorious
Life, which is just another way of saying “abiding life,” we are not
ready for his coming. And if we are not ready for his personal coming,
we are not ready for his presence in our midst now. That which gives
us boldness _then_ is what gives us boldness before his throne _now_
when we come to pray. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have
boldness toward God: and whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because
we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his
sight ... and he that keepeth his commandments abideth in him, and
he in him” (1 John 3:21, 22, 24).
If the coming of the Lord is in God’s Word linked so vitally with a
life of personal holiness, it is essential that Christians should
understand what the Spirit has revealed to us concerning the truth of
his coming. It is only at our peril that we neglect it. It is not an
accident that most of those who are rejoicing in the Victorious Life
are or become deeply interested in the truths of the Word concerning
Christ’s coming.
But how shall we know whether our view of his Second Coming is the
Scriptural view?
Testing Our View of His Coming
There are two tests that will show with certainty to what extent our
belief about Christ’s coming is a vital heart belief such as the
Apostles had. The first test concerns more definitely our personal
relation to his coming. Is the hope of his coming a real hope for you
that makes it the incentive to be ready and makes it a real event to
watch for with expectation, as for the return of a loved one?
The second test relates to the whole sweep of God’s purposes of
redemption and the part that Christ’s Second Coming plays in them. A
right understanding at this point will determine the general plan of
activities of the Church of Christ and of the individual Christian in
this present day of Grace. How essential then to know God’s thought
on this subject, and how idle to suggest that this truth is not of
practical bearing on present service. Both the spirit of service
and the scope of service are involved, and these two tests show how
intensely practical and necessary is the right view of his coming.
The first test has already been considered, and it is seen that the
Victorious Life truth is vitally linked with the hope of his coming.
The second test of our belief regarding his coming is even more
fundamental, and again it will be seen to be closely tied up with the
heart secret of the Victorious Life, and with the truth of regeneration
as well.
It is a common thing to speak of the doctrine of Christ’s Second Coming
as of greater or less relative importance than certain other doctrines;
thus, it is pointed out that the Second Coming is mentioned more
often in the New Testament than any other doctrine except that of the
atonement. It leads to confusion thus to speak of the teachings of the
Word as though they could be divided. While it is convenient to study
the doctrines separately we miss a great truth if we fail to remember
that all these teachings brought to us by the Word of God are connected
one with the other and together form a complete unity.
The Second Coming Necessary to the Atonement
The doctrine of Christ’s Second Coming is not a teaching apart from the
atonement, but is _necessary to the atonement_. That is, God’s plan of
redemption for us cannot be completed apart from the coming of Christ
and the events connected with that coming. His coming therefore is
essential to salvation. Not that the understanding of the doctrine is
essential to individual salvation. A sinner needs to know very little
Scripture in order to be saved; when the Spirit has convicted him of
sin a single sentence of Glad Tidings will suffice. But it requires
the whole redemptive purposes of God to make that salvation possible.
And those redemptive purposes include the appearing a second time
of the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ. The importance of our Lord’s
Second Coming, then, is exactly parallel with the importance of his
first coming and of his present ministry for the believer.
The Word of God presents salvation in a threefold aspect. There is the
past, the present, and the future of salvation. “We were saved; we are
being saved; we shall be saved.”
The Three “Appearings”
On every side these three aspects of salvation are emphasized in the
Word. Attention has frequently been called to the three appearings
mentioned in the ninth chapter of Hebrews: “_now to appear_ in the
presence of God for us ... now once in the end of the world _hath he
appeared_ to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself ... and unto them
that look for him _shall he appear_ the second time without sin unto
salvation” (Heb. 9:24, 26, 28).
In the three Shepherd Psalms the same truth is shadowed forth. The
twenty-second Psalm points to the redemption accomplished on Calvary,
and is the Psalm of crucifixion and resurrection; the twenty-third
Psalm is a picture of the present resurrection life in Christ; and in
the twenty-fourth Psalm we have the picture of the coming King. He is
seen in these three Psalms as the Good Shepherd who laid down his life
for the sheep; as the Great Shepherd who rose again from the dead,
who makes us perfect “in every good thing to do his will, working in
us that which is well-pleasing in his sight” (Heb. 13:20, 21); and as
the Chief Shepherd who will appear to give the crown of glory to his
faithful servants (1 Peter 5:4).
This threefold salvation is sometimes spoken of as justification,
sanctification, and glorification: first, salvation from the penalty of
sin; second, salvation from the power of sin; and third, salvation from
the possibility of sin.
There are three fundamental errors by which Satan seeks to rob of its
power this threefold Gospel, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in his
past, present, and future work.
Discounting Christ’s Past Work
There is the teaching that we are saved from the death penalty of our
sins by Christ plus our own effort. This error finds expression in many
ways. One mistake, more common in the past generation than to-day, is
to consider it presumptuous to be sure of salvation. Now if the work is
wholly Christ’s it cannot be presumptuous to be certain that that work
is complete and is satisfactory to the Father. Then there is the belief
that salvation from death and hell depends on our holding on to Christ,
and since we may fail and thus fall away, we are never entirely sure
of salvation until death comes or until the Lord comes to claim us.
These teachings present a subtle _mixture of works and grace_. If we
are saved by grace, if redemption is entirely the work of Christ, then
may we indeed have assurance of eternal salvation. In its extreme form
this error is pure paganism, salvation by our own efforts. In its more
refined and moderate form it keeps Christians from the glorious present
assurance of their eternal safety in the Lord Jesus. The safeguard
against all these errors is to remember that salvation from the penalty
of sin is all of grace. And grace means, Jesus Christ did it all for
me. If he did, the work is finished, the work is perfect, and we have a
sure guarantee that the purposes of God will be carried out. No one can
pluck the saved soul out of the Father’s hand.
Discounting His Present Work
Most Christians are clear on the truth that they are saved by grace.
They make no effort of their own to add to the perfect atonement that
Christ has made for their sins. But these same Christians when facing
the present tense of salvation, the second part of the threefold
Gospel, declare that here our own efforts are necessary. We must
co-operate with God in fighting sin. We are justified by faith, but we
are sanctified, gradually, by struggle. Their error is that they are
_mixing works and grace_. God’s plan for present salvation from the
power of sin is exactly the same as his plan for deliverance from the
penalty of sin. It is all of grace.
The test of the truth of our view as to Christ’s Second Coming and the
future tense of our salvation is as infallibly certain as the tests
of the other aspects of salvation. For salvation is all of grace, and
any view which makes salvation for the individual or for the universe
a mixture of God’s work and man’s work, a mixture of God’s grace and
man’s effort, is in error.
The Two Views of Our Lord’s Return
There are two views of our Lord’s coming. One is that the Church of
Christ through the preaching of the Gospel and by co-operating with
other agencies for righteousness, will Christianize the social order
and bring in the period of righteousness which the Bible pictures as
the Kingdom age. At the close of this period, the Lord Jesus will come
to judge the world. This is called the post-millennial view, because
the Kingdom age is known as the “millennium,” or the thousand years.
The other view is that this thousand years of blessedness, or the
Kingdom age, will not be inaugurated until Christ himself comes as King
to set up the new order on earth. This is known as the pre-millennial
view.
A well known Christian leader who has been very active in the preaching
and working for “social regeneration,” gave a message on the task of
the Church in the present world crisis, and the problem of the Church
in making the world what it ought to be. He announced as his text,
“And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things
new” (Rev. 21:5). One who heard the message remarked that the speaker
after announcing his text, “with two swift kicks kicked the text out
of the auditorium, and did not allow it to enter again during his
discourse.” For the opening sentence of his message was this: “Can we,
the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, make things over?”
God’s Word does not say, “we, the followers of the Lord Jesus.” It
says “I”; and the Son of God sitting on the throne of his glory is the
speaker. The Word of God does not speak of making things over. It says,
“Behold, I make all things _new_.”
Discounting Christ’s Future Work
Here is the fundamental error of the post-millennial view of the Lord’s
coming: _it is a mixture of works and grace_.
God’s plan for establishing righteousness in the universe is exactly
the same as his plan for establishing righteousness in the human
heart. It is all of grace, not of works. The pre-millennial view means
the Kingdom age by grace, as the Victorious Life means the Kingdom
principles in the individual heart by grace.
Let each Christian earnestly face these two tests of his attitude
toward the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Make the Blessed Hope a Vital Power!
If his hope of the coming of the Lord is not an incentive of vital and
present power in his life, there is something wrong with his theory. If
a Christian believes that it is not possible for the Lord to come for
at least a thousand years, or until the period during which Satan is
bound has run its course (whether a thousand literal years or not), can
he honestly say that the blessed hope of the personal appearing of his
Lord is a vital power in the life?
The second test of our view of his coming can apply also to every part
of our salvation. Have we the blessed assurance of eternal salvation
through the blood that gives us eagerness and power to lead others into
the same assurance? Are we rejoicing in all the blessed “present tenses
of salvation,” victory by grace through faith? Are we surrounded by his
own light in these dark days because we know that the world’s problem
is to be solved by grace, by God himself, so that we live “soberly,
righteously, and godly in this present age; looking for that blessed
hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ”?
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND VICTORY
Christian Science offers a life of freedom from worry or anxiety. It
proposes to give the secret of the smiling face in the midst of any
sort of circumstances.
Christian Science offers complete freedom from the dominion of sin.
Christian Science offers to make faith a vital and all-pervading force
in daily life.
Christian Science offers to give deliverance from the bondage of
sickness.
It is not wise for Christians to attempt to meet Christian Science by
ridicule and sarcasm. Christian Science is offering to supply exactly
the things that the hearts of thousands of church members are craving.
It is not strange that many should be investigating its claims. If the
indication in a single Christian Science center is a fair criterion,
there are thousands of church members daily looking into this supposed
“new” teaching to see if they can find a faith with a vital reality in
it.
These things that Christian Science claims to supply are just the
things that are offered to every Christian through the sufficient grace
of the Lord Jesus.
The Victorious Life in Christ is a life kept free from worry or
anxiety. Its possessors have the secret of a constant, abiding joy that
is independent of circumstances (Phil. 4:6, 7; John 15:11; 16:22).
The Victorious Life, which is just Christ himself in the believer,
gives complete victory over sin, without struggle (Rom. 6:14; 1 Cor.
10:13; John 8:36).
The Victorious Life is the life of faith, walking in the Spirit,
looking unto Jesus, enduring as seeing him who is invisible, counting
the unseen things the eternal and real things (Col. 3:3; Gal. 2:20;
John 15:7).
The Victorious Life is a life of prosperity for body as well as for
spirit, for in Christ is the supply of every present need, for body,
soul, and spirit (3 John 2; Ps. 103:3; Matt. 8:17; Rom. 8:11).
If the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ were faithfully
preached there would be little prepared soil among church members for
the springing up of the seeds of “Christian Science.” It is the Enemy
who is sowing these seeds and the supreme sign of his subtle work is
this apparent likeness to the true grain. What is the fundamental
distinction between Christian Science and the Victorious Life in
Christ, between God’s truth and Satan’s imitation of that truth?
Error’s Imitations of Truth
Christian Science says: “In nothing be anxious: there is nothing to be
anxious about. All troubles are creations of the mind, results of wrong
thinking, and the cure for them is to think them away.”
The Word of God says, “In nothing be anxious.” Not because there is
nothing to be anxious about. There is. There is that which required
the bloody sweat of the Son of God in Gethsemane. But the Word of God
tells us that full provision has been made for those wrong things that
may well cause anxiety. Back of the word of the Spirit in Philippians,
“In nothing be anxious,” is God. Back of the Christian Science word is
“mortal mind.”
Christian Science says, “Reckon yourselves dead unto sin: because sin
has no real existence, and since it is a creation of the wrong thinking
of mortal mind, the way to think it out of existence is to reckon
yourself dead to it. As you reckon, as you believe, you are dead to
sin, and for you it has no reality or existence.”
Faith Does Not Create Facts
The Word of God says, “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto
sin.” Not because sin does not exist. It does. Not because sin is not
real. There is nothing more real in the universe. But Jesus Christ has
met the full measure of the guilt and penalty and pollution of sin,
and has completely conquered it. If we are crucified with him, buried
with him and risen again with him, as every child of God is, then
we are to reckon it true that we are dead unto sin: not because our
thinking can change facts, but because God himself tells us to count on
a great fact, something that he himself has accomplished; as we reckon
that fact true our faith is laying hold of the benefits in present
experience of that redemption which God has accomplished. _My faith
does not make the fact true._ Faith gives me the benefit of a fact that
is true whether I believe it or not. True faith is impossible without
something real to rest upon. Satan’s counterfeit faith in Christian
Science returns upon itself, endeavors to create facts by thinking them
true.
Christian Science says that sickness and death are delusions of the
mortal mind. It does not offer a scheme of healing disease but a
philosophy to make clear that disease does not exist except as an error
in the thinking of mortal mind. Clear away that error in thinking, and
the effects of the so-called sickness will disappear.
The Word of God says, “The wages of sin is _death_”; and, “Himself took
our infirmities, and bare our _sicknesses_.” Without entering here into
the question of the use of remedies, or the limitations to the use of
“the prayer of faith” which will heal the sick, let us remember that
in Christ there is full provision for sin _and all its results_. He
came to destroy the works of the devil. It is certainly God’s highest
and first will that his children should be in health of body, not in
sickness, if this result can be had without injuring his children in
other ways. God’s permission of sickness and premature death among
his devoted children must not be pointed to as an indication that it
is not his first will that all his children should enjoy health of
body. God would have all men to be saved, and has made full provision
for their salvation: but not all are saved; God would have all his
children abide continually in Christ and be kept from sinning, and he
has made complete provision for this: but few are entering into their
full privileges of victory; God would have his children free from
disease, for he is the God who forgives all our iniquities and heals
all our diseases, and in Christ he has made full and complete provision
for this: but in his infinite love and wisdom he permits many of his
children to continue in suffering of body for longer or shorter periods.
Christian Science Kills Faith
In this contrast between Christian Science and the Word of God it will
be seen that the teachings of this “faith” cult make faith impossible.
Satan always strikes at the center of things in his attacks on
Christians and on the Word of God; so he takes away their faith and
that which it rests upon. Again and again in personal interviews with
those seeking victory, when the meaning of faith has been explained the
answer has come, “Why, that would be just like Christian Science. I
cannot make a thing true just by believing it.” With Christian Science,
thinking a thing true makes it true, or rather, “thinking right”
removes the error which has resulted only because the thinking has been
wrong. But real faith rests always on facts. We believe, not in order
to make a fact true, but because it is true.
So startling is the parallel between what Christian Science offers and
what the Victorious Life in Christ guarantees, that a number who have
read articles in _The Sunday School Times_ have written to ask if the
Victorious Life teaching and Christian Science were not practically the
same. In answer to these inquiries a brief Open Letter was published a
few years ago pointing out the difference between Christian Science and
“the Victorious Life.” The Open Letter closed with this sentence: “They
differ from each other as do food and poison, noon-day and midnight,
omnipotence and impotence, life and death, Heaven and hell, Christ and
Satan.”
A Christian Science Leader’s Admission
A leading advocate of Christian Science called upon the Editor of _The
Sunday School Times_ to protest against this article. The interesting
thing about the interview with this cultured representative of
Christian Science was his earnest effort to prove that he and his
fellow Scientists believed just what Christians who were teaching the
Victorious Life believed, and were aiming at the same kind of life. As
each point was mentioned there was this apparent agreement, until――mark
this――until the vicarious atonement through the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ was mentioned. There he frankly confessed that they parted
company; they do not accept any atonement for sin.
At a Victorious Life Conference a Christian Scientist girl was
prevailed upon to attend a meeting where the subject was the meaning
of faith in laying hold of God’s Word that “My grace is sufficient
for thee,” and similar words of fact and promise. At the close of the
meeting an opportunity was given for those who wished by rising to
commit the whole matter of victory to God, trusting him to do it all by
grace. To the astonishment of her friends, the Christian Scientist girl
rose. She asked them, “Are you surprised that I stood? That is what I
have believed all along.” She was accepting it all as good Christian
Science. At the close of the period of question and discussion the
speaker asked if there were those present who had never accepted the
Lord Jesus as Saviour from sin, and did not know salvation through the
shed blood of Jesus. At the mention of the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, this young woman who had stood up to take a step of faith for
victory, rose at once from her seat and left the room.
Here we come to the heart of Christian Science error: it denies the
blood, the vicarious atonement for sin. And here is the secret of many
unsatisfactory attempts on the part of Christians to live a life of
victory. Earnestly seeking to claim the wonderful promises of God’s
word, many have failed to understand the meaning of the blood of Christ
and to share in experience his crucifixion death, that they might also
know the resurrection victory.
A Masterpiece of Imitation Victory
Christian Science is the devil’s great masterpiece of imitation
victory. It is the vain attempt to know the resurrection life without
the crucifixion death. It is the attempted robbery of the life
pictured in the twenty-third Psalm, the life of still waters and green
pastures, the life in which all the needs of the sheep are met by an
all-powerful and all-loving Shepherd. But while attempting to claim the
twenty-third Psalm, the Christian Scientist blots out the twenty-second
Psalm with its agony of Calvary and its resurrection victory. We must
be one with the Lord Jesus in his death and burial before we can be
one with him in resurrection life. The blood of the Lord Jesus must
be kept always at the heart of the teaching and the experience of the
Victorious Life. The reason for much disappointment in the living of
the Victorious Life is because there is what may be called a Christian
Science acceptance of the teaching without a real foundation being laid
in the blood of the Lamb.
First of all, the foundation must be laid in a clear understanding of
the meaning of the new birth. Those who have had experience in dealing
with hungry Christians seeking the life of victory in Christ, have
been amazed at the number of such earnest inquirers who have no clear
conception of what it means to be born again, or to be saved by grace.
Can You Tell a Sinner Just How to Be Saved?
The following question has been put again and again to audiences
consisting of Christian workers and Bible students: “How many here are
sure you could tell an inquirer exactly what he must do to become a
Christian and receive the new birth?” The result of this question is
nothing less than startling. As many as half and two-thirds in these
audiences have not raised their hands to indicate that they could
explain the way of salvation. But if one cannot tell an inquirer how
to be saved, neither can he tell why he himself is sure of salvation.
And until one knows the word regarding the real meaning of sin and the
atonement, there will be only disappointment in trying to get hold
of the experience of victory in Christ.
The steps of salvation are perfectly simple. First, one must know that
he is lost. Otherwise he cannot need a Saviour. To believe that the
Lord Jesus Christ died in my place, I must believe that I am such a
sinner as deserved death. “All have sinned and come short of the glory
of God” (Rom. 3:23). Joined with this is the word, “The wages of sin
is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
Lord” (Rom. 6:23). I am saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8); faith
is believing that all my sins were put on Jesus and he paid the penalty
for them (Isa. 53:6); now I have been born again and am a child of God;
and I know it not because I feel it, but because God’s Word says so
(John 1:12; 1 John 5:9-13).
A clear understanding of the blood will save us from a superficial idea
of sin and its awfulness. If the cross of Christ is ever in view we
shall have God’s estimate of sin, and there will be a clear realization
that it required the whole sacrifice of Calvary to accomplish the
miracle of victory. In a testimony meeting at a Victorious Life
conference a Christian was explaining that his chief difficulty had
been with “those little troubles,” such as irritation, impatience,
pride and such things. “You mean those devilish sins,” the leader
of the meeting suggested. There is not likely to be that earnest,
agonizing heart cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me
from the body of this death,” so long as we think of sin as little
troubles to be overcome. All sin is devilish, and the Son of God is
the only one who has won the victory over sin. Victory for us then
begins with the cross of Christ, but it is possible only as we keep
continually under that shed blood and appropriating His resurrection
life. The whole sacrifice of Calvary is necessary to keep us free from
the least of what we call the little sins.
Christian Science not only would rob a Christian of faith, it would
rob him of the blessed hope. “The second appearing of Jesus is
unquestionably the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God in
Christian Science,” says Mrs. Eddy. Hope points toward the future, and
Christian Science has no place for future deliverance from evil and
sin, except as the human race learns that these are errors of mortal
mind.
It Takes Away Faith, Hope, Love
Christian Science would rob us of love. It is a startling fact that not
a dollar is given by Scientists to preach the Gospel among those who
have never heard the name of Jesus. They have no foreign missionary
societies. A Christian who had spent fifteen years in work among the
poor and degraded classes in New York City was rebuked by a Christian
Scientist for suggesting that her faith was not the faith of the Bible;
he asked her why it was that in his fifteen years’ experience, touching
all phases of work for the relief of the destitute in body and spirit
in New York, he had never come across a single Christian Scientist
helping in the work. She had no answer. It is a religion without
compassion.
Faith, hope, and love are linked together in a remarkable passage in
Hebrews 10:19-25. Close to the word faith is mention of “the blood
of Jesus”; not far from “hope” are the words “so much the more as ye
see the day drawing nigh”; and in close conjunction with “love” is
“good works.” Thus are these great foundation stones of the Christian
Faith linked in the Word of God. All of them are denied, and are made
impossible by Christian Science.
The antidote to Christian Science is the Word of God. But do they not
found their belief on the Bible? No. The Bible is not necessary to
Christian Science. Indeed, it is one of the great handicaps to the
system. Not many Scientists are as honest, or as well informed, as the
locomotive engineer who recently explained that Christian Scientists
knew that the Bible was not true, and that men would gradually give it
up; but it had such a hold on people that no religion could hope to
have a hearing unless it professed to be founded on the Bible. When
people get hold of the truth of Christian Science, they will see,
he added, that the Bible is not needed and is false; the purpose of
Christian Science is to lead people away from the error of the Bible.
That is certainly the purpose of the real founder of Christian Science,
whether or not it was in the mind of the woman he used to propagate the
cult.
And the antidote to superficial views of the Victorious Life, which
partake of these errors of Christian Science, is the Word of God. Feed
on it, meditate on it _day and night_. So will the living Word continue
to be your Life, guarding and keeping you in that victory which is
Christ.
IS IT A “SECOND BLESSING”?
“Do you believe in the second blessing?”
“To be sure I do,” answered a Christian whose reply voices the judgment
of many, “but I shouldn’t confine it to a second blessing. I believe in
hundreds of blessings after conversion.”
Whatever may be our view of such a term as “the second blessing,” let
us not lose the experience it describes by confusing these hundreds
of blessings with that distinct change which comes in a life when the
secret of complete victory is learned.
A noted Christian leader in England who was prejudiced against the
teaching of a “higher life” was prevailed upon to hear a message on the
subject. He approached the speaker, who was a friend of his, with this
criticism: “That is all well enough, but you are preaching lop-sided
truth. What we need is all-round truth.” “Yes,” was the reply, “but we
are preaching to lop-sided Christians. When we get them into the center
then we can give them all-round truth.”
Dr. Griffith Thomas, who relates this incident of the English
preachers, has pointed out that “the perfecting of the saints” means
literally “the adjusting of the saints.” It is as when a broken
shoulder needs to be set before the blood can flow properly and the
arm be used. It is this adjustment of “lop-sided Christians” which
marks the great change. Those who experience the change realize that
it is something different from any blessing they have received since
conversion, and different from any new experience of deepening that
will come in the life later.
What is this distinct change that comes in the life of the Christian?
It is clear that the Scriptures never hold before the believer two
_standards_ for the Christian life. The New Testament does recognize
that Christians may walk as “carnal,” whereas their true state is to
be spiritual (Gal. 6:1; 1 Cor. 3:1). It recognizes that Christians may
walk after the flesh or after the Spirit (Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16).
A Spirit-Filled Life God’s Only Standard
But this does not mean that there are two standards for Christians
to choose between. On the contrary, the Word makes plain that when a
Christian walks after the flesh, when he is “carnal,” he is acting as
though he were not a child of God at all. “And I brethren, could not
speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in
Christ. I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not yet able
to bear it: nay, not even now are ye able; for ye are yet carnal: for
whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal, and
do ye not walk after the manner of men?” These Christians, Paul says,
were walking as natural men, who have not been born again, instead of
living as spiritual children of God.
There is no platform below the Spirit-filled life which affords a safe
resting ground for a Christian. One who calls himself by the name of
Christ, but does not have the fulness of the Spirit, and yet says that
he has no desire for this deeper experience, is confessing that there
is no evidence he has ever been born again. For while a Christian may
live below the standard Christ desires he cannot be comfortable in
doing it; the Spirit of God within him is longing for the driving out
of everything contrary to the life of Christ.
The heart of the Spirit-filled life is freedom from sin. A normal
Christian is a man who does not sin. “We who died to sin, how shall
we any longer live therein?” (Rom. 6:2). “These things write I unto
you that ye may not sin” (1 John 2:1). “Whosoever is begotten of God
doeth no sin” (1 John 3:9). “We know that whosoever is begotten of God
sinneth not” (1 John 5:18).
Some teachers who have noted these plain statements of the Word have
concluded that a Christian does not commit sin, and that so soon as
a Christian does he ceases to be a Christian. If he is sinning it is
a proof that he is not a Christian, and will not be reinstated as a
child of God till he ceases his sinning. These teachers, however, see
the difficulty that in the heart of many Christians are wrong feelings
that should not be there, and which they do not want there but over
which they apparently have no control. To get over this and other
difficulties they explain that a Christian does not _commit_ “outward”
sins, though he has these sinful impulses in his heart. Even this
standard, it is to be feared, would cut down the number of Christians
to a small minimum.
A Normal Christian is Free from Sin
But a more serious objection to this method of explaining these
difficult verses in First John is that it contradicts the very
point that the Apostle is making. If close attention is paid to the
conclusion of First John 3:9 it should guard from these errors:
“Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in
him: and _he cannot sin_, because he is begotten of God.”
That seed which is born of God is, as Dr. A. J. Ramsey has pointed
out, the Child of God himself, not a seed _in_ him. While he abides he
cannot sin. (As Moffatt also translates: “The offspring of God remain
in Him.”) The whole argument of the Epistle of John, and particularly
of this portion, is that a normal Christian is one who is free from
sin. The Apostle does not mean to say that a child of God does not
“deliberately” sin, or that he does not “continue in sin” as the rule
of his life, or that he does not let the inward impulses of sin express
themselves: he means that the Christian, while he abides in Christ,
where he belongs, does not sin. He is God’s new creation, and walks in
the light having fellowship with God. For “God is light, and in him is
no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
When a Christian Acts as a Child of Satan
Does John mean that a Christian does not sin, or that he ceases to be a
Christian if he sins? The opposite is taught in this very Epistle. John
is writing these things that Christians may not sin, but he recognizes
that they may, and tells them just what to do to have the sin cleansed
away in case they do sin.
When a Christian sins, _he is acting against his true nature_. That is
the argument of First John and of all the Epistles. When a Christian
sins, he is acting _as though he were_ a child of the devil. He as a
child of God can have nothing to do with sin. But there is his free
will to step out of the place of abiding, and this makes possible the
tragedy of a Christian’s sinning.
James is facing this tragedy of a Christian’s acting against his true
nature when he exclaims: “Doth the fountain send forth from the same
opening sweet water and bitter? can a fig tree, my brethren, yield
olives, or a vine figs? neither can salt water yield sweet” (James
3:10-12). All these things act according to their true nature. If a
Christian acted thus there would flow always from his life and lips
the fruit of the Spirit. But the Apostle shows in the passage that a
Christian may pray with the same mouth that he uses to say mean things
about his neighbor, and that he may have in his heart “bitter jealousy
and faction.”
Here, then, is our foundation truth that God has but one standard for
the Christian life, one kind of holiness, and that is the standard of
his Son, who is to be our life. And that Life, that holiness, God has
given _to every Christian_.
God’s Perfect Provision for Every Christian
It was to those “carnal” Corinthians, who had jealousy and strife in
their midst, that Paul by the Spirit wrote: “I thank my God always
concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ
Jesus; that in everything ye were enriched in him, in all utterance and
all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our
Lord Jesus Christ; who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may
be unreprovable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful,
through whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ
our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:4-9).
This surely is a picture of the fulness of blessing in Christ, and it
is stated that this grace had been given to the Corinthians because
they were Christians. Similarly in the eighth chapter of Romans the
life of victory is described: “For the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom. 8:2).
This freedom belongs to every believer in the Lord Jesus. So throughout
the New Testament it is made clear that when God spared not his own Son
but delivered him up for us all, he freely gave with Christ all things
that a Christian needs.
But while there is but one salvation, and one plan of salvation, this
salvation has a two-fold aspect. God has indeed only one standard for
Christians, the standard of his Son, that is complete holiness. But
God’s message of salvation comes to two distinct classes of people, to
lost sinners, and to saints――sinners saved by grace.
Christians Need to Be Saved
“If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death
of his Son” (Rom. 5:10). This is the message of salvation for sinners.
The next words of this verse are very significant: “Much more.” The
apostle has just been speaking of salvation for sinners, and now he is
to tell us something “much more.” This word should prepare us for some
amazing revelation of his grace. “Much more, being reconciled, shall we
be saved by his life.”
Do Christians, then, need salvation? Indeed they do, and the Word of
God suggests here that a good name for that salvation which reconciled
Christian needs is “the much more salvation,” and this is just another
way of saying “the Victorious Life.”
God has granted that life to every Christian. But not every Christian
is enjoying it. For the Christian has the terrible power of choosing
to walk after the flesh and not after the Spirit. God’s plan is that
the Christian life should be a moment by moment miracle life, just as
the new birth is a miracle. “If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit
let us also walk” (Gal. 5:25). Being born again, and “walking,” are
two distinct things. When a Christian learns that God intends him to
walk by faith, letting Christ do it all, just as he has believed that
Christ has done it all in the matter of saving him from the penalty
of his sins, then the Christian is ready to enter into the fulness of
the Spirit, which is the Victorious Life.
And when he does enter by faith for the first time into this complete
victory, which has been his privilege all along in Christ, there is
such a marked change that it is natural for a Christian to think of
it as a “second blessing.” There is that perfectly clear distinction
between being born again, and “walking” or living moment by moment
after the new birth has taken place. The man who has been born again is
in a place to take hold of the much-more salvation for Christians as he
could not do in his unregenerate state.
Testing Our “Doctrine” of Victory
There are some simple tests of our “view” of complete victory over sin
which will show whether we are in danger of coming into bondage to a
_doctrine_.
Any view that centers attention upon self is dangerous. The heart
secret of victory is looking away from self unto Christ. If I testify,
“I am holy”; if I must look into my own state, examining self to see
whether this holiness still remains, I am on wrong ground.
Any view that brings into prominence my past record of victory or
holiness leads to difficulties. The testimony, “I have not sinned
for so many weeks or months since my new experience” may be given
with sincerity, and the speaker may intend to give the glory to God.
Nevertheless, it is a wrong testimony, and no encouragement is given
in the Word for such a statement. For one thing, no human being has a
perfect memory; none of us can have accurate knowledge of past states
of consciousness. Victory is always a matter of the present moment,
and if we are occupied with Christ and _his_ perfect work for us, the
matter of _our_ past record is of no consequence, so far as it bears on
present victory by faith.
Any view that centers attention upon feeling is on the wrong basis.
Many Christians who have come into the new experience of the fulness of
the Spirit have been overwhelmed with flood-tides of blessed feeling.
In some cases this exalted state of feeling has continued for weeks or
even months. Some have counted this the “witness of the Spirit” that
a new work of grace has been wrought in their hearts. Many have been
thrown into confusion and darkness by waiting for this “witness of
the Spirit,” which they have been taught to believe is some wondrous
consciousness in their feeling. Others who have had such a “witness”
have later lost the feeling and have wondered whether their experience
has gone. God often permits the feeling to go, that his child may learn
to look to Christ and to the fact of his grace in the life, rather than
to the feelings, which vary according to temperament and circumstances.
What is the “Witness of the Spirit”?
Feeling or emotion should not be discounted, but should be kept in
its right place. Praise God for every blessed emotion that is of his
Spirit, but praise him also when the emotion is entirely absent. He and
his grace remain the same, while the feelings go up and down. There
should be, indeed, a continuous consciousness of his presence, but
consciousness is based on fact and is not to be confused with emotion.
As to the “witness of the Spirit,” there is no suggestion in the Word
of God that this “witness” has any connection with a great flood-tide
of feeling. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in
him: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he hath
not believed in the witness that God hath borne concerning his Son.
And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this
life is in his Son” (1 John 5:10, 11). The witness is God’s record,
or God’s eternal Word to us, that he has done something, that he has
given us a gift. He does not want us to _feel_ this word, or witness
of his. He wants us to _believe_ it. One who does not believe it makes
God a liar, and this is what Christians are in danger of doing, both
in regard to salvation from the penalty of sin and salvation from the
power of sin. When we believe this word, and the wonder of the gift
breaks upon us more and more, we shall have feelings, of course, and
they will find expression according to our different temperaments and
environments.
(Dr. Griffith Thomas notes that the often abused passage on the witness
of the Spirit in Romans eight does not say that the Spirit beareth
witness _to_ our spirit, but _with_ our spirit, that we are children
of God. That is, our spirit says “Father,” and the Holy Spirit says
“Father” with us.)
John Wesley on Use of Terms
Whatever our “view,” let us guard against laying emphasis upon certain
terms, and making these the test of correctness. We should remember
that God has granted the same experience to Christians who have come
into their experience by different paths and who therefore explain
it in different ways. The important thing, after all, is to have
the fruits of the experience in the life. John Wesley, who had the
experience, whatever our view of his theology, has a word of wise
counsel at this point:
“Beware of tempting others to separate from you. Give no offense which
can possibly be avoided; see that your practice be in all things
suitable to your profession, adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour.
Be particularly careful in speaking of yourself; you may not indeed
deny the work of God; but speak of it when you are called thereto in
the most inoffensive manner possible. Avoid all magnificent, pompous
words. Indeed, you need give it no general name; neither ‘perfection,’
‘sanctification,’ ‘the second blessing,’ nor ‘the having attained.’
Rather speak of the particulars that God has wrought for you....
And answer any other plain question that is asked with modesty and
simplicity.”
Was It Sin, or “Infirmity”?
Any view that leads us to lower the standard of holiness to fit our
experience, or to argue with the devil or with ourselves over sin, is
in error. A Christian who has had a blessed new experience notices
something in the life that is not quite according to the Spirit of
Christ. He begins to examine it and decides that this is not a sin
but one of the “infirmities” from which he has not expected complete
deliverance. Or he confesses it as a sin and is cleansed in the blood
of Christ, but since he does not want to believe that he has lost his
experience he explains that this was a temptation from without and was
not due to any evil within. Or, not able to delude himself with these
bits of human reasonings, he falls back into his old life of struggle
and failure.
John Wesley has a word in season here also: “And if any of you should
at any time fall from what you now are, if you should again feel pride
or unbelief, or any temper from which you are now delivered, do not
deny it, do not hide it, do not disguise it at all, at the peril of
your soul. At all events, go to one in whom you can confide, and speak
just what you feel. God will enable him to speak a word in season which
shall be health to your soul. And surely the Lord will again lift up
your head and cause the bones that have been broken to rejoice.”
The Bible treatment of the conquest of sin is subject to none of these
distressing difficulties. It guards from dangerous errors on every
side, and at the same time leaves no loopholes for tolerating sin as do
the current views held by nearly all Christians.
What Terms Does the Bible Use?
God says, “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin” (Rom. 6:11).
There are two ways the devil would like us to interpret this. One is by
his old lie regarding “death.” He wants us to believe that the capacity
for sinning is taken away so that we shall not acknowledge sin to be
sin, and shall call the works of the devil the fruit of the Spirit.
But death is not annihilation, but separation. It is not that some
“thing” within us has been put out of existence. All that we were as
lost sinners, in our unregenerate state――the “old man”――was crucified
with Christ and is buried, and a Christian is to reckon that fact true.
But he is to remember that there is ever the possibility of turning
our members over as instruments of sin. And whenever sin enters, when
anything in thought, word or deed that is contrary to the Spirit of
Christ has a place in the life, it means that self is on the throne and
we are alive to sin.
But Satan’s other interpretation of this verse is his favorite one,
for by it he deludes most Christians. It is only when this fails that
he tries the other and drives the Christian beyond the Word of God.
You are to reckon yourselves dead unto sin, Satan tells us, but of
course you know very well that it is never actually true that you _are_
dead unto sin. You will keep on sinning. When you die then will come
complete deliverance, but not before. In other words, God is a liar.
All Satan’s wiles in the last analysis are found to be variations of
this original statement of his to our first parents.
God never tells us to reckon on a lie. It is eternally true that in our
position before God we are dead to sin, because we have been crucified
with Christ and raised together with him. This position of ours becomes
a blessed reality in actual experience as we reckon by faith, and only
so long as we reckon by faith. Let Satan not rob us of our heritage
by telling us it is only “positionally” that we are dead to sin. God
is not thus mocking us when he tells us to “reckon” on this truth of
crucifixion with Christ.
When We Reckon Self Dead to Sin
This reckoning gives us no holiness of our own. It gives no cause for
boasting in our own record. It gives no uneasiness as to whether we
have had this or that feeling as a witness of the Spirit.
It will be seen from these Scriptures which have been considered that
every true Christian has _a measure_ of victory in Christ. As Dr.
Scofield has pointed out, the experience of Christians and Christian
experience may be two entirely different things; for Christian
experience is wholly the product of the Holy Spirit. Whatever measure
of true Christian life is expressed, therefore, is the work of the
Holy Spirit, and to that extent is victory by faith, even though the
Christian is ignorant of the truth of the faith walk.
The Victorious Life, which is just another term for the normal
“Christian Life,” is simply walking moment by moment in complete faith
in His perfect work.
Whether I am in victory or not at this moment is simply a question as
to whether or not I am appropriating the sufficient grace of the Lord
Jesus for the needs of this very moment. My glorious privilege is so to
appropriate that grace, _now_, and to do it moment by moment without
any breaks. For His Grace IS sufficient. His Grace is “more than
enough.”
CONTINUING AND GROWING IN VICTORY
A wrong start is one of the chief causes of failure in the Victorious
Life. The first secret of continuing in victory, so to speak, is to
begin. Nothing can be continued unless it is begun. To see clearly that
the Victorious Life is a miracle of grace, and is wholly the work of
the Lord Jesus, is necessary to this right beginning. Many attempt to
live the life without fully getting rid of the element of self-effort.
Having begun right, the next thing is to continue as we began. The act
of surrender and faith by which we entered into victory becomes the
continued attitude of the life. Failure can come only through a slip in
surrender or in faith.
It is possible to abide in Christ for victory _without a break_. The
Word of God says that _if_ a Christian sins he is to do certain things;
it never says _when_ a Christian sins. It is not for us to look back
over our past record to consider whether we have sinned, or to see how
long we have continued without a break; but in looking into the future
we must expect to be kept from sinning or we are not trusting the
sufficient grace of Christ; and that means we are not at the present
moment in victory.
Along with this expectation of continued victory must go the
realization that at any moment we may fall into sin: “let him that
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,” is the warning that
immediately precedes the glorious promise of First Corinthians 10:13 of
God’s full provision for victory over every temptation.
Suppose, then, we should fall into sin after entering into the
Victorious Life? _Instant and full restoration after failure_ is God’s
plan for the Christian who sins and thus breaks the perfect abiding in
the Lord. “In the moment of defeat, shout Victory!” and claim your full
privileges in Christ.
But does not this make light of sin? Any other course makes light of
sin. This course sees sin to be such an abominable thing in God’s
sight that nothing but the blood of the Lord Jesus poured out in
expiation can avail to meet it. And if the blood of Jesus meets it, it
is an insult to God to attempt to add anything else to that perfect
atonement. Being sorry for sin for a period is an unconscious form of
atonement by self effort.
The Bible――A Music Box, or a Telephone?
Without constant feeding on the Word of God and continually living in
an atmosphere of prayer no one can be maintained in a life of victory.
At every cost we must set our faces like a flint to get the daily quiet
time with God over the Word and in prayer. This does not mean that
Bible study and prayer are the secret of victory. They are not, and
many are hindered from victory by supposing that their more diligent
Bible study and prayer will somehow bring them into victory. _Faith_ is
the secret of victory. But faith is impossible without the Word, and
the maintaining of faith is impossible without continually abiding in
the Word of God. An infant will not live without food and air, but we
would not say that food and air were the secret of that life which the
Creator alone could give.
The Victorious Life gives the secret of a hunger for the Bible and
prayer. The Word of God becomes literally sweeter than honey and the
honeycomb, and more to be desired than gold, yea than much fine gold.
Our Lord expects the Bible to be a telephone, as Dr. Charles R. Watson
has said, not a music box whose tunes are familiar and stale: we take
the receiver from the hook, and the Lord Jesus Christ is at the other
end of the line. It is really our privilege to have a personal message
from the living God to our own souls every day, and at every moment of
need.
The Victorious Life and Missions
“Is not the Victorious Life rather self-centered and is there not
danger of selfishness?” was asked.
“Is Christ selfish?” was the sufficient answer given to this question.
If the life of victory does not flow out in service, it is a
counterfeit, and cannot be maintained. There is a reason why a passion
for foreign missions will be found at the heart of all the conferences
that teach the life of victory in Christ. These two are inseparable,
Christ as the supply of our individual needs and Christ the sufficiency
for the world’s need.
Let our testimony to the Victorious Life be far more in loving, humble,
unselfish service to those about us and those in the ends of the earth,
than it is in the words of our lips.
Do We Grow Into Victory?
Growing in grace is one of the secrets of maintaining the life of
victory; without normal growth we shall lose our victory. We do not
grow _into_ grace; we grow _in_ it. Receiving the Victorious Life is
not a matter of growth.
There are, in many cases, shorter or longer periods of growth that
precede the entrance into the life of victory. So far as God is
concerned, the Life is a gift and not a growth, and it may be enjoyed
at once by any Christian. But the Christian may gradually come to
understand what are his privileges in Christ in the matter of victory
over sin. Or he may not at once get to the bottom in the surrender of
life to the Lord, and God will lead him on as quickly as he will go,
to the place of complete surrender and complete faith. This gradual
preparation before entering fully into victory must be distinguished
from “growth in grace,” which goes on in a normal way only when the
Christian _is_ abiding in Christ for victory.
Growth in grace, in the Word of God, never means growth out of sin.
There is no suggestion in the New Testament that a Christian is to grow
gradually out of sin. Sin is always dealt with through the blood of
Christ, and we need the Saviour every moment to keep us cleansed from
sin and its defilement. But if it is the blood that cleanses us by
grace we are not to eliminate sin gradually by our growth in grace.
What is “Growth in Grace”?
Growth in grace makes us more and more to conform to the likeness
of our Lord Jesus. There is no perfection in his brethren on earth
that can be compared to the measure of the stature of his fulness. By
faith we receive the fruit of the Spirit, which is just the character
of Christ produced in us by the new life of the Spirit. Every one of
the nine graces which constitute the one fruit of the Spirit,――“love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness,
self-control,”――belongs to the Christian who is trusting Christ for
victory. But in each of these graces he is to _abound more and more_.
This is true growth in grace.
One who by yielding his life to the mastery of Christ and by trusting
his word, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” has received the fulness
of the Spirit, may know very little about the Bible, or prayer, or
Christian service. Day by day he learns more of the wondrous things
out of the Word, learns better how to study it and use it in personal
work; day by day he learns new secrets of prayer from the Word and
by the diligent practice of prayer; and gradually he becomes a more
efficient and expert laborer in the harvest. This is true growth in the
knowledge of the Lord.
When Invalids Grow
Growth in grace is positive, not negative. Sin is a hindrance to true
growth in the spiritual life as well as in the natural life. An invalid
may, indeed, grow in body, and sick Christians do grow in grace, but
the growth in both cases is retarded. When the disease germs are
conquered then begins normal growth. So in the Bible figure of the race
toward the goal: this race is not a struggle to overcome sin, but a
race which sin may greatly retard. We are counseled to lay aside every
weight and the sin that clings closely about us, and run the race,
looking unto Jesus. A Christian _may_ run with the weights and the sin,
and he is in the race, but it is not to be wondered that there are many
stumbles and slow progress.
There are several passages in the New Testament which give a
marvelously clear picture of this positive growth in grace, and show
beautifully the distinction between the present purity of the believer
and his future entire conformity to the Lord Jesus.
God’s present standard of purity for his children is the purity of
his only Son in whom he is well pleased. He is our Life; and apart
from him we have no purity. “Every one that hath this hope set on him
purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). But just before
this statement of God’s purpose for the present purity of his children,
we read: “we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for
we shall see him as he is.” This is the hope set before us,――perfect
conformity to the likeness of Christ. And this very hope is urged as
a reason for present purity of the kind that Jesus has. Is there a
contradiction here?
Tribulation as God’s Molding Chisel
In Romans 3:23 we read that “all have sinned, and fall short of the
glory of God.” Then grace comes, we are justified in the Beloved,
and in Romans 5:2 we read: “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
But hope is always future, for “hope that is seen is not hope.” This
hope of the glory of God, perfect conformity to his likeness, is the
same hope spoken of in First John. But in Romans five we have added
light on the part that growth in grace plays. “We also rejoice in
our tribulations [literally, that which presses down]: knowing that
tribulation worketh stedfastness, [literally, that which holds up under
the load]; and stedfastness, approvedness [literally, passing the
examination or the test]; and approvedness, hope [hope of the glory of
God, or the character of God]. Then follows this remarkable statement:
“and hope putteth not to shame.”
A future hope will always put to shame if there is no present guarantee
that the hope will be realized. If I announce that a certain rich man
is to give me a fortune of ten million dollars ten years hence, the
hope of this wealth will put to shame if there is nothing to show that
the millionaire will keep his word. My friends are likely to say, “We
shall wait and see.” But if the millionaire gives me as an earnest of
the expected inheritance a check for half a million dollars, my hope
does not put me to shame.
Now notice what follows God’s statement that this hope of his glory
puts not to shame: “because the love of God hath been shed abroad
in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given unto us.” The
perfect guarantee of my _future_ likeness to the Lord Jesus is the
miracle of my _present_ likeness to him. The love of God shed abroad
in my heart makes me like Jesus. The love of God shed abroad keeps out
hatred and all other manifestations of self, so long as the Spirit is
in control and can express his fruit. The Holy Spirit is the payment
down of this future glory. The Holy Spirit _hath been given_ unto us,
not will be; this is not a future hope. The Holy Spirit is our earnest.
“In whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of
promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance” (Eph. 1:13, 14).
Make Use of Your “Earnest”!
In rejoicing in that glorious hope of what is to be brought to us at
the appearing of the Lord Jesus, let us take care not to despise the
present provision for victory and purity in the Holy Spirit. We long
for the redemption of our bodies, that we may be clothed upon with that
tabernacle which is from heaven, “that what is mortal may be swallowed
up of life,” and that we may have a body like his glorious body; but
meanwhile we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, and we rejoice in the
tribulations and all the things this body endures because it works out
in that growth which gives more and more of his own character (Rom.
8:23-26; 2 Cor. 5:1-5).
These passages in Romans and Second Corinthians just quoted make it
clear that the future hope refers particularly to the redemption of our
bodies, when we shall have a body like to the body of his glory. Every
Christian will receive this body and be conformed to his likeness; for
this, as is every part of our redemption, is all of grace. But while
all Christians will share the purity and the glory, not all Christians
will have the same _measure_ of glory. “There is one glory of the sun,
and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one
star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection
of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:41, 42). The enduring of tribulation, the
working out of stedfastness and approvedness,――growth in grace,――will
undoubtedly determine the degree of glory in that resurrection body.
The Key-Verse on Growth in Grace
Probably no better key-verse on growth in grace can be found than
Second Corinthians 3:18, and in that verse is gathered up the messages
of these other passages that have been considered: “But we all, with
unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the
Lord the Spirit.” As we look unto Jesus, and grow in his knowledge and
grace, we are changed, as one scholar has translated it, “from one
degree of glory to another degree of glory.”
As we get to know the Lord Jesus better and better, sin becomes more
horrible to us; we see its true character. This does not mean that
we become worse sinners, for we are growing from one degree of glory
to another. But we appreciate more and more what sinners we were by
nature, apart from grace; we see the depravity that follows sin, and we
exalt the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ which has saved and is saving
us from such sin and corruption.
The margin of Second Corinthians 3:18 adds a final glorious touch:
instead of “beholding as in a mirror” there is the translation which
many believe more accurate, “reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the
Lord.” It is ours to behold and then to reflect. Do they see Jesus in
us? It is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). He himself is
the secret of growth in grace, as of all else.
CAN MAN BE FREE FROM SIN?
“How can I be free from sin?” is the question that in one form or
another is troubling the heart of many a true child of God. But before
we ask “How?” the other query rises, “_Can_ I be free from sin?” and if
not completely in this life, “How far may I be free?”
As is to be expected, the teaching of the Word of God on the sin
question is simple, direct and unequivocal. But there are a number of
misconceptions that have served to confuse the minds of many earnest
seekers after the truth.
One of the best tests of the truth of our view of sin is the results
in experience. It is, however, a blessed fact that one may have an
experience that is infinitely better than the theory he holds regarding
sin.
That sinning is inevitable for the Christian,――
That sinning is an accident, not the choice of a free moral agent,――
That sinning is an incident, not a preventable tragedy,――
That Christians may reach in this life a state in which they cannot
sin, or where they are not subject to temptation,――
These are some of the contradictions of God’s revealed truth which
result in keeping Christians from having complete liberty in Christ and
freedom from sinning.
Back of the question, how far may we be free from sin is the further
problem, “What is sin?” and it is in answering this question that we
may fall into a fundamental misconception which leaves us confused when
reading the plain statements of Scripture. Many a supposed difference
among Christians regarding freedom from sinning rests back in a
difference in their definition of “sinning.” But this is far more
serious than a mere difference in the definition of a word, which might
be passed over as unimportant. For, as we shall see, if our use of the
word “sinning” differs from that which God means by sin, there is sure
to result a confusion which will affect our experience in the matter of
deliverance from sin.
There is substantial agreement that Christians should be, and may be,
free from dishonesty, lying, stealing, jealousy, strife, bitterness,
evil speaking, fornication, covetousness, and a thousand other sins
that might be named. Also it is agreed that it is not for Christians
to grow out of such sins, nor to get rid of them gradually, but to put
them off as wholly inconsistent with the Christian walk. How complete
is the list of such sins that a Christian may be free from just now? Or
to put the question in another form, how much sin is it necessary for a
Christian to have?
“But,” some one asks, “is not everything that falls short of God’s
absolute standard of perfection sin?” Our purpose in this study is
intensely practical, and so it is not the intention to enter into a
full discussion of theological terms. It may be suggested in passing
that many who use such an expression as “God’s absolute standard of
perfection,” would find great difficulty in explaining just what they
mean. But we may here get at the problem as it presents itself in
experience. All are agreed that there is no possibility of perfection
of attainment in this body, meaning by such perfection an absence of
all error or mistake in everything that is done. We may go further
and say that by this standard of “perfection” every act falls short,
and every moment of life is compassed with infirmity. If this kind of
“falling short” is sin, then there can be full agreement that there
is no such thing as freedom from sinning in this body. (It would
not be entirely accurate to say, “if this imperfection is sin,” for
“perfection,” like all words――and everything else human――is imperfect
and relative and takes its meaning from the thought in the mind of the
user.)
Is such falling short sinning? Or to reduce the question to practical
everyday experience, “Is every act of the Christian sinful, as well as
every word and thought?”
Three Bible teachers met together on one occasion to discuss the sin
question; before they began their conference one of them suggested
that they have prayer, and he led in petition for their guidance and
blessing. This brother, a theological professor and a Christian noted
for his holy living, contended that everything a Christian did was of
necessity tainted with sin because it fell short of “perfection.”
“Doctor,” one of the others asked, “is there not a difference between
the sin we committed when we prayed together at the beginning of our
conference and the sin I should commit if I were critical or bitter
against you?”
“Yes, there is a difference,” he replied (answering according to
Scripture and his common sense), “but” (answering according to his
theory) “it is a very dangerous thing to make distinctions between
sins.”
It is a disastrous thing _not_ to make distinction between these two
things. With one stroke we would blot out the difference between light
and darkness if we class together the act of a Christian who with
a heart full of love pours out his petition in imperfect words for
some needy one, and the act of a man who with his heart full of hate
runs a dagger through the heart of that same needy one. There is the
same infinity of difference between this “imperfect” prayer and the
critical or unloving attitude that the praying Christian might later
fall into.
Turning from men’s reasonings regarding sin to the Word of God, we find
these plain statements:
“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye may not
sin” (1 John 2:1).
Something had been written, then, which revealed the secret of keeping
from sin as a present, practical experience for the child of God.
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may
abound?” (Rom. 6:1.)
“What then? shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under
grace?” (Rom. 6:15.)
God’s answer to both these questions, which is just one question put in
two ways, is the same: a strong, emphatic negative――“God forbid.”
There can be little question in the minds of any that what John means
by sinning in this first letter of his, and what Paul means by sinning
in Romans six, is something that a Christian should not and need not
do. He may be kept from sinning, in this meaning of the word.
It may well be asked, what other meaning of the word is there? If
we start out with the conception of sinning that makes every act of
a Christian to be tainted with sin, do not the Scriptures become a
real puzzle in their positive statements about keeping from sin? This
supposed difficulty has given rise to an attempted distinction between
“conscious” and “unconscious” sinning. Those who use these terms
do not always have the same distinction in mind, but some refer to
this falling short of “perfection” as “unconscious sinning,” adding
that such sin needs cleansing but involves no guilt.
But _all sin involves guilt_. God cannot do other than condemn sin,
whether in the Christian or in the unbeliever. Moreover, neither in
First John, nor in Romans six, nor anywhere in the New Testament is
there distinction made between “conscious” and “unconscious” sinning,
or “known” and “unknown” sins. These distinctions between sins are made
by men with the implication that we may be kept free from one kind of
sinning but not from the other. Does not this make void the word of God
by our traditions? For God says, through John, “My little children,
these things write I unto you, _that ye may not sin_.”
We shall avoid all such difficulties if we rid ourselves of the notion
that the sinfulness or the righteousness of a man’s act is to be judged
by some outside standard. God’s measure is an inside standard. Sin can
never be discovered in the act, but in the motive of the heart of the
man who performs the act. Two men go into a restaurant and hang up
their overcoats. Two other men in the restaurant take these overcoats
with them when they go out. One man has stolen an overcoat. The other
man has taken it by mistake, thinking he had brought his own overcoat
with him, and is much distressed when he finds he has another man’s
coat. But meanwhile both men have lost their coats. Nothing can be
determined as to whether sin is involved until you get to the heart
of the men who took the coats. One man sinned. The other man surely
came short of that perfect outward standard of action, and he should
not have been so thoughtless as to take the coat. The experience
will doubtless make him more careful in the future in avoiding such
a mistake. But he did not sin. And if our theory makes it necessary
for us to say that he sinned, then we have blotted out all moral
distinctions, and there is an end of urging men to come out of darkness
into light.
Since sin is in the motive of the heart, it becomes clear why a man
who is out of Christ is sinning all the time, in thought, word and
deed. He may do many moral things and live on a high plane judged by
man’s standard, but he is incapable of God’s righteousness. Only the
love of God shed abroad in the heart through the Holy Spirit can make
righteousness possible. A natural, unsaved man cannot please God in
anything that he does. That is why he must be born again before he is
capable of goodness. When he is saved he may love God with his whole
heart, and then he can and does please God. And let us remember that no
man can please God with sinning, whatever adjective is prefixed.
Another fruitful source of confusion in studying the Scripture
teachings regarding sin is the taking of Bible statements concerning
man in his natural state and applying them to the new creature in
Christ Jesus.
“There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10).
“There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one” (Rom. 3:12).
“All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
“In thy sight no man living is righteous” (Ps. 143:2).
These statements are used in Scripture to describe the condition of
all men outside of Jesus Christ the Saviour. To wrest these words from
their connection and apply them to saved men to prove that they are
not righteous and that they continually are coming short of the glory
of God, is to take all meaning and significance out of the language
of Scripture. It is because this is our natural state that we need a
Saviour. When He saves us, are we left in the same state? Some have
carried this strange use of the words of Scripture to the extent of
believing (or thinking that they believe) that Paul considered himself
still the chief of sinners after he was saved. He speaks of himself as
the chief of sinners for the very purpose of showing the greatness of
the grace of the Saviour which availed to save the chief of sinners,
and that grace was not found vain. But what would we say of a Saviour
whose grace abounded in such a way as still to leave Saul the chief of
sinners? That is not Paul’s Saviour, and that is not the way Christ’s
grace operates even in the lives of those true Christians who think
they believe themselves still to be unrighteous sinners.
Perhaps the Scripture that has suffered most from this method of
lifting it out from its environment is First John, one, eight: “If we
say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
us.” A passage which was written for the express purpose of giving the
children of God the glad tidings that they need not sin, and pointing
out God’s provision for keeping them walking in the light, has somehow
become for many a stumbling block which keeps them in darkness.
Now whatever John, one, eight means it must be in accord with the later
word that these things he was writing that we may not sin. “And if any
man sin, we have an Advocate.” “_If any sin._” That means there is a
possibility of _not sinning_, as well as the admitted possibility of
sinning. He does not say “_When_ a Christian sins,” which would make
sin inevitable. Now if a Christian were sinning all the time, this
word of assurance against sinning, and also the word of comfort and
assurance for the Christian who has been overtaken in a fault would
be robbed of all meaning. First John, one, eight, therefore, cannot
mean that Christians are sinning continually, or if they are, the next
verses urge them to get out of that condition.
The literal rendering of this verse is, “If we say that we have not
sin,” or “If we say that we do not have sin.” The negative is an
adverb, not an adjective. The ordinary renderings, “If we say that we
have _no_ sin,” might encourage the assumption that the Apostle was
speaking of degrees of sin and warning against the thought of being
free from all sin. But sin is not something that can be divided; if
there is sin, there is sin, and it is not here a question of more or
less sin.
It will help also to remember that there is no independent First John,
one, eight in the Word. This sentence is part of a closely woven
argument running from the fifth verse of the first chapter to the sixth
verse of the second chapter. He is talking of fellowship with God,
which is an absolute thing in the sense that we either have perfect
fellowship or we do not have perfect fellowship, just as a man wants
perfect fellowship with his wife though the fellowship deepens and
becomes richer as the days go on. There is but one thing that can break
this fellowship with God, John says, and that is sin. For God is light
and in Him is no darkness, and the man that has fellowship must walk
in the light. Therefore man needs to be cleansed from sin so that he
may walk in the light, having fellowship. There were some in his day,
as in ours, who were saying that they had fellowship, though they were
walking in darkness. If we say that, we lie. But if we admit that we
cannot have fellowship and be in darkness, and are cleansed from sin in
the blood of Christ, then we may walk in the light. If we say that we
do not have sin, and therefore do not need this cleansing, we deceive
ourselves. But if we are not deceived in this way and confess our sins,
he is faithful and righteous to forgive us and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness, so that we may walk in the light. If we say, as they
were saying in his day, that we have not sinned, we make God a liar,
for he has said that all men have sinned and come short of the glory of
God, and therefore need a Saviour. John is writing all of this for the
purpose of keeping these Christians from sinning, not for the purpose
of explaining to them that they must be sinning continually while they
are walking in the light. Sin breaks the fellowship, and before a man
sins he must step out of that light. This is the message of the whole
of First John. He may confess and be cleansed and restored to the
fellowship, walking in the light.
* * * * *
But was not John referring to Christians when he said “we”? Let us ask
if John meant that he and other Christians would say that they had
fellowship with God when they were walking in the darkness; or would
he and others say that they had not sinned, and thus make God a liar?
The “we,” of course, is used in the same sense as, “If _any one_ says
that he has fellowship with him.” It is the use of the first personal
pronoun that we ourselves continually make in stating universal truths.
Some have even brought consternation to rescue mission workers by
telling them never to use First John, one, nine for sinners, because
the “we” refers to Christians, and God is “faithful and just” to
forgive Christians, because they are under the covenant, while it is
of his mercy that he forgives sinners. But “he is the propitiation
for our sins; and not for ours only, but _also for the whole world_,”
and since God has given Christ to die for the world, it is of his
righteousness and justice to forgive every sinner the instant he turns
to the Saviour. This is not to say that it is not also of his mercy,
but as one has suggested it is mercy from start to finish, for the
Christian as well as the sinner. The rescue mission workers and other
soul winners may go on using this verse with a clear conscience, for
God will honor it both for sinners, and for Christians when they act
like sinners, and need to confess and be forgiven.
In _The Sunday School Times_ there was published recently a remarkable
testimony of one who was saved from Christian Science, and the verse
that brought conviction was First John, one, eight. “Why, that is just
what I have been doing,” this woman said in amazement to herself one
time when she read this verse. “I have been saying that I have no sin,
and I am deceived. I need a Saviour.” This is the Spirit’s use of that
passage; if it refers to Christians who have confessed their sins and
have accepted the Saviour and been cleansed from sin, there can remain
in it no convicting power for the one who has not confessed.
These brief suggestions upon this passage are given with the thought
of provoking further study, and the reader may still feel strongly
that First John, one, eight refers to Christians, whatever their
spiritual state may be. Let us grant that it does, and the Christian
then is confessing to God and to men, “I have sin.” Putting aside the
difficulty of understanding how it is possible for me to be without
condemnation for the sin, or how it is possible for me to walk in the
light in fellowship with God while I have this sin, let us face this
simple question, “When am I going to get rid of this sin?”
There are at least seven theories that have been suggested to answer
this question, and to get rid of the “root of sin” which it is supposed
John is dealing with when he says, “If we say that we have not sin, we
deceive ourselves.” All are agreed that without holiness no man shall
see God, and that this means actual holiness; and therefore all who
hold these different theories are agreed that this root of sin referred
to by John must be gotten out, or eradicated.
The first theory is _gradual eradication after death_, or gradual
purification, for which a place called purgatory is provided (by the
theology, not by the Lord). This theory of course is a matter of works
from start to finish, and perhaps no reader of these pages would
entertain it.
The second is _gradual eradication during life, with the completion of
the process at death_. In this theory the process during life makes no
real progress toward the consummation at death since all equally need
the work at death, whatever the degree of eradication during life.
The third is _increasing counteraction during life, with eradication at
death_. That is, the evil is not eradicated gradually during life but
is counteracted increasingly by the power of God, while remaining till
its removal at death.
The fourth is _eradication at death_. That is, the evil is unaffected
during life, and awaits death for its removal.
The fifth is _eradication at the coming of Christ_. But if we die we
enter into the presence of His holiness and need purity before this
event.
Few maintain this theory, except those who go the length of identifying
the root of sin with the physical body or with the blood, thus making
sin inhere in matter. This assumption is also needed to give support to
the second, third and fourth theories, for the only change that, takes
place at death is the separation of the spirit from the body.
The sixth is _eradication before death_, requiring a second work of
grace, subsequent to regeneration.
The seventh is _eradication at the moment of regeneration_, which
perhaps few in our day hold, though it has been earnestly contended for
in other days.
All of these eradication theories, with the exception of the last, make
necessary a second work of grace subsequent to regeneration. They mean
that God has to do something else to free a man from sin after he is
cleansed, by faith, in the blood of Christ, and made a new creature by
the operation of the Holy Spirit. For manifestly, if a Christian must
say, “I have sin,” he must get rid of that sin, and it must be done at
one of three times: before death, at death, or after death. Is there a
line of Scripture that gives support to any one of these six theories
of a second work of grace, or of the theory of eradication at the first
work of grace?
All of these theories rest upon the assumption that there is a “root of
sin” _in_ a man, in a mechanical, material sense, and that from this
root sin springs.
The Scripture testimony is that _the man himself is the root of sin_.
Sin springs from _him_. Our Lord said that out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts and deeds that defile the man. He was not speaking of the
heart as a physical or spiritual entity _in the man_, but showing the
Pharisees that righteousness or evil did not consist in the outward
acts or observances, but proceeded _from the man himself_. For the
heart is the man.
This natural man, who is himself the root of his sin, must be born
again. It is the man himself who is born again, made a new creature
in Christ Jesus. The heart, that is, the man himself, is purified by
faith, through the miracle work of the Holy Spirit. This new man, who
in the moment of regeneration has the fruit of the Spirit, his heart
filled with love, continues to have victory in Christ as he continues
to abide in Christ. “As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so
walk in him” (Col. 2:6). This is God’s plan. It is because Christians
have not continued so walking, or perhaps because they have not known
clearly and fully the normal New Testament experience that should
result from “receiving” Christ Jesus, that there is need of a crisis
in the life, a decision to get back where we belong in the place of
abiding.
* * * * *
But why is it possible for this new creature to sin after he has so
received Christ? It has been assumed that there must be some root of
sin in the Christian that makes it possible for him to sin. It is
strange that this should be thought a necessity when we know that
Satan sinned, and Adam sinned, when they were sinless and had never
been tainted with any impurity. If it were _not_ possible for this new
creature to sin, he would be a machine; his very humanity would need to
be destroyed. If we accept as the alternative of this kind of Christian
a Christian who is provided with something in him which causes the sin,
we arrive at exactly the same conclusion with this difference: we have
a machine which cannot do anything except sin. Let it be understood
clearly that if a man in this body and in this life in the midst of
temptation is not able to sin then he is not able to be good. He can
sin for the same reason that he can be good, because he is a free moral
agent. That is the way God made him, and it is of the essence of his
humanity. Everywhere in Scripture the Christian is appealed to as one
who is responsible to choose. The reason that a Christian can sin is
because he still has his free will. And when he sins, it is not a root
of sin in him that sins. It is he who sins.
That first sin (which need not occur) after a man is made a new
creature in Christ, or after he has understood and taken Christ as his
Victory, is always a tragedy. Sin should always be a tragedy. It is not
an accident nor an incident. But if the man is not responsible, but has
something in him that makes sin necessary, then he cannot regard sin as
a preventable tragedy.
But it is not possible for God to sin, and yet he can be good. Here we
come to the heart of our confusion regarding a Christian’s goodness.
God not only can be good, He himself _is goodness_. He is holy in a
way that no man ever was or ever can be. For man’s holiness is never
absolute in this sense, but always relative. Not relative in the sense
that sin must be present, but relative because of the moment by moment
relationship with God, the Holy One. Therefore for the Christian to be
kept from sinning he must abide in Christ, and he cannot do other than
sin if left to himself. At the root of all these eradication theories
lies the assumption that man is to be made independently holy. But man
is a dependent creature. This is of the essence of humanity, altogether
apart from sin. Utter dependence on his creator and his Saviour (and
the Saviour is the creator of the new life) is the only safety for the
child of God. There is indeed no room for boasting nor for looking to
self when we learn God’s wondrous plan of salvation by grace.
Two Christian workers were talking together at the lunch table about
the question of what happened to a man when he is saved. One of the
brethren pointed to the granulated sugar in the bowl as representing
him as a lost man. He then took a spoon as representing the divine
life imparted in conversion, stuck it into the sugar, and said: “This
represents my new nature, and the sugar is still the same corrupt
nature. But I am in Christ as the sugar is in the bowl.” In other
words Christ is enclosing a mass of corruption with a righteous spark
injected into it.
Another Christian worker, representing what Christ did in saving him,
drew his coat about him so as to cover up his white vest, and said that
in just this way God clothes us with Christ’s righteousness, while we
remain a mass of corruption beneath.
Still another, putting these illustrations into theological terms,
said: “God imputes the righteousness of Christ to me in exactly the
same way as he imputes my sin to Christ. So that when God looks at me
he sees the righteousness of Christ, just as when he looks at Jesus he
sees my sin.” The implication is that righteousness touches me in just
the way that sin touches Christ, namely, it is as far from me as the
east is from the west.
These brethren are all true children of God, washed in the precious
blood of Christ. Fortunately they were not telling the truth about
themselves; more seriously they were maligning the Saviour, and while
the intellectual confusion may not keep them from victory in their
own lives it serves to entangle many an earnest seeker. And this sort
of handling of God’s word is what has furnished the enemies of the
Gospel of grace their chief weapons in attack. These statements, if
they are taken at their face value, constitute as complete a denial of
the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as Mrs. Eddy’s
philosophy of the denial of sin and the Saviour.
As Luther roused the Church by the battle cry of “Justification by
Faith,” let the complete truth of the complete Gospel be sounded to-day
in the cry of “Salvation by Faith.” For “it is of faith, that it may be
according to Grace” (Rom. 4:16). God never justifies a sinner without
saving him. That is, he does not call a man righteous without making
him righteous. If he did, God would be in the place of the man whom
James condemns, who says to the brother or sister naked and in need
of daily food: “Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled,” yet gives them
not the things needful to the body. “What doth it profit?” James asks.
“Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself” (Jas. 2:15-17).
Even so would the calling a man righteous without making him righteous
be useless for the soul that is naked and destitute of righteousness.
Justification, in the sense of “declaring righteous,” is dead apart
from the miracle of cleansing and regeneration which _makes righteous_.
And we need righteousness, just as the naked and hungry man needs
clothing and food, _now in this life_. There is no hope held out for
any future provision of freeing from sin. There is still a part of our
redemption from sin and its results that is future, but very distinctly
are we told that this concerns the redemption of our body, not the
purifying of the soul. (Using purifying in its negative meaning of
cleansing from impurity. For we must remember that there is a positive,
progressive, and increasing work in conforming us to the likeness of
Christ which is quite distinct from this matter of cleansing, which is
always absolute; we are either cleansed or we are not cleansed from
sin.)
The works that James insists on as a proof that the faith is real
faith, are possible only for the new creature in Christ, who is
producing the fruit of the Spirit as he abides in Christ, the fruit
which is the righteousness of Christ made real in experience, and
abounding more and more as we grow in grace (not into grace), and the
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Not a half salvation of “justification by faith” to take care of the
past only of our sins, but let our watchword be a complete salvation
of “CHRIST BY FAITH.” For it is Christ that saves from sin, who makes
a new creation with old things put away, and who provides a way of
abiding in that freedom, walking in joy and peace and victory, just as
we received Him in freedom.
“If, therefore, the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
“Being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness.”
“Now being made free from sin and become servants of God, ye have your
fruit unto sanctification.”
“For freedom did Christ set us free: Stand fast therefore, and be not
entangled again in a yoke of bondage.”
THE HOLY SPIRIT
If the Victorious Life is “the life that is Christ,” lived in the
power of the risen Christ dwelling in the heart, what is the work of
the Holy Spirit in such a life? Are Christians who pray for, or seek,
the “fullness of the Spirit,” or the “baptism of the Spirit” or the
“receiving of the Spirit,” asking for something different from the life
of victory in Christ?
The answer to such questions reveals the beautiful unity of God’s plan
of salvation, in which each Person of the Godhead has His perfect work
but in which our Lord Jesus Christ has ever the pre-eminence till the
work of salvation is completed. We may approach the truth from teaching
concerning the Holy Spirit, but it is Christ who will be exalted. Or
we may experience resurrection life through learning of the truth
concerning the indwelling Christ, but it is the Holy Spirit who makes
possible that experience in the life.
The Holy Spirit is God. If we start with this fact, and stay with it,
we shall be saved from much confusion as to the Holy Spirit’s office.
If he is God, we cannot limit Him, and we cannot confine Him to this or
that manifestation of His power.
The Holy Spirit is not merely a manifestation of God; He _is_ God. And
one Person of the trinity is never present without the others. While
the Holy Spirit has a distinct work in the believer, this work is never
disassociated from the other Persons in the Godhead. The Father and the
Son and the Spirit all dwell with us (John 14:17, 23; 1 Cor. 6:19; 2
Cor. 13:5).
The Holy Spirit is a Person. We are not to seek a quantitative
appropriation of a certain amount of the Spirit of God, perhaps
comparing the amount we have with that which we think others have, but
rather to receive God the Holy Spirit, who is a Person. But this truth
of His personality is to be kept in balance by the companion truth
that He is God, and in conceiving Him as a person we must not put the
limitations of human personality upon God, as though He could only
indwell one person at a time, or as though one person or any number of
persons could exhaustively contain Him.
What is the work of God the Holy Spirit in this age? We know that we
are born again by the power of the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is in
every child of God (John 1:12, 13; John 3:5, 6; Rom. 8:9, last clause;
1 Cor. 6-19).
If the Holy Spirit is in every child of God, what result does this have
in the life? What is His work in the believer? Is it the same for each
believer? In what sense did the Holy Spirit come at Pentecost, and in
what sense is he here in a different way from His manifestation before
Pentecost?
It is in answering such questions that we are in danger of building up
a doctrine from experience rather than from the Word.
A Bible teacher who has been mightily used in soul-winning and in
stimulating other Christians to this work, dates his great success from
the time when he learned that the Holy Spirit was the secret of power
in service; he lacked the power, saw the need, asked for the fulness
of the Holy Spirit, by faith believed that God had granted his desire,
went out boldly with no reference to feeling and counted upon the fact
of the Holy Spirit’s work as he gave the message to men. The results
were marvelous, and continued to be as day by day he counted upon this
enduement of the Spirit. Along with this experience came the inevitable
longing to share it with others, for he knew that any Christian might
do as he had done; the blessed result was that many Christians through
him were led into this new life of service. It was natural that this
mighty man of God should take his true and Scriptural experience
and build around it his doctrine of the Holy Spirit and His work
for believers, interpreting the Scriptures by the experience. So he
developed an inclusive doctrinal teaching that the baptism of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost, and to- in the life of the individual believer,
is for power in service, the evidence of the work being the results in
witnessing.
Another Christian worker had a longing for heart purity and a life free
from any feeling of condemnation because everything was not pleasing to
God. He heard a testimony from a brother who had been in a like state
and had learned that it was not by effort or struggle or trying that he
was to get peace and purity, but by the work of God through the Holy
Spirit coming into or upon the believer and purifying the heart. As the
first mentioned brother did, he asked God for this gift and then by
faith believed that his prayer was answered. The result was an amazing
transformation, a life of joy and liberty which was such a miracle
revelation and so different from the average Christian experience that
many came to him asking for the secret. He told them what had happened,
and he too proceeded to put together his doctrine of the Holy Spirit
and taught that every Christian who was born of the Spirit needed to
seek as a second work the baptism of the Holy Spirit to bring purity of
heart.
There is no question that these brethren experienced the gracious
power of the Holy Spirit. But they did not accurately relate those
experiences to the teachings of the Word.
In John 7:39 is suggested what the fundamental, primary work of the
Holy Spirit was to be, and why He was able to come into the world in
a new way at Pentecost. After our Lord, in the last great day of the
feast, cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He
that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, from within him shall
flow rivers of living water,” the apostle explains, “But this spake he
of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive for the
Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
The Spirit was to be given at Pentecost in a way in which He was not
given before. And it is expressly stated that the one thing needed
before His being thus given was the glorifying of the Son of man.
Link this with our Lord’s word in John 16:13, 14 and we have clearly
revealed the connection between the glorifying of the Son of man and
the work of the Spirit: “He (the Holy Spirit) shall not speak for
himself.... He shall glorify me.”
This is His specific work, to glorify Jesus. But how?
“Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I
go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you;
but if I go, I will send him unto you. And he, when he is come, will
convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness,
because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more; of judgment,
because the Prince of this world hath been judged” (John 16:7-11).
How is the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin, of righteousness,
of judgment? Notice it is conviction of one sin, not many, the one sin
of rejecting the Saviour. It is one righteousness, the righteousness
that Christ is. It is one judgment, the past judgment upon Satan, the
completed victory over our great Adversary won by Christ.
In the words “ye behold me no more,” we have the key to the marvelous
truth of this revelation concerning the Holy Spirit. The only example
the world had of God’s righteousness (which is the only kind of
righteousness there is,) was the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man.
When He goes to the Father how is the world to know what righteousness
is? for it can behold the righteous one no more. They cannot know it
by reading about it. There is one way, and one way only to reveal
righteousness, that is in a human being living a righteous life. To
secure this Jesus Christ the righteous One must be manifest in the
life. “They see me no more. They must know righteousness by looking at
_you_. I have been the light of the world while in it. Now you, having
become sons of light, are to be the light of the world” (John 12:23,
31, 35, 36; John 17:1, 22).
This is how the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ, by crowning Him Lord
in the life, and manifesting the Son of man in each of His brethren.
The world is convicted of sin by seeing the meaning of rejecting the
Saviour as revealed in the man who accepts Him. The world is convicted
of righteousness, and the difference between God’s righteousness and
man’s morality, by seeing a righteous man. The world is convicted of
the judgment of the prince of this world by seeing a life set free from
the power of Satan.
This is why the disciples had to wait at Pentecost, not wait to get
themselves into a certain receptive spiritual state, but wait till
the Son of man was glorified and the Holy Spirit was sent forth. They
did not need further knowledge of the facts about Christ the Saviour.
But before they became witnesses to Jesus Christ, they themselves
must become living messages, living witnesses, by having Jesus Christ
revealed _in them_. This is what the Holy Spirit did, and this is what
would be impossible without the Holy Spirit given in this new way.
Some one has well said that the Holy Spirit is for the servant, rather
than for the service. The service and the life is the normal outflow
when the servant, the man himself, has been filled with the Holy Spirit.
The fulness of the Spirit, this new work of the Spirit for the
believer, is just the Christ life manifested in the believer. This is
the fruit of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22, 23). This
is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit
given unto us (Rom. 5:5). This is the earnest of our inheritance――the
hope of glory that puts not to shame (Eph. 1:13, 14; Rom. 5:1, 5). This
is the transforming power for growth in grace (2 Cor. 3:18). This is
the thirteenth of First Corinthians made real in our experience, the
love which is the fulfilling of the law.
The Holy Spirit convicts and comforts. He convicts the world, and also
the believer when he walks after the world. He comforts the saints,
and we have noted something of what this means. The Holy Spirit makes
possible the life of victory in Christ. The fulness of the Spirit,
walking in the Spirit, the Spirit indwelling the life (that is,
controlling it), are all other ways of saying, the life that is Christ,
the Victorious Life, the life kept from sinning, the Christ-controlled
life.
The Holy Spirit gives distinct gifts for worship and service, he works
miracles, he does many things for the believer. But these things which
he does for different believers, dividing to each severally even as He
will, must be kept distinct from the one central purpose which is the
same for every believer, namely the manifesting of Christ in the life
(Gal. 3:5; 1 Cor. 12 to 14; Eph. 4:14-16).
And the one proof that Christ is not manifested, is _sin_. Thus victory
over sin is central in the work of the Spirit in our salvation.
We have asked and briefly answered two questions concerning the Holy
Spirit: “Who is He, and what does He do?” “Who has Him, and what
do they do?” There remains a third question, the answer to which
determines whether His miracle working power shall be available in
present experience: “Has He me?”
The Holy Spirit may be in a believer, and yet not controlling the life.
This is the meaning of the exhortation to Christians in Ephesians 5:18:
“Be filled with the Spirit.” These believers were born of the Spirit
and sealed with the Spirit (Eph. 1:13), yet there was the possibility
of their not being filled with the Spirit. This is the meaning of the
charge, “Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the
flesh” (Gal 5:6). There was a possibility of walking after the flesh.
So in Romans 8:4 Paul declares that the righteous requirement of the
law is “fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit.” This is the life of victory, lived in the power of the Spirit.
And this is the life which a believer may effectually hinder by his
own will in keeping from yielding to the control of the Spirit, whose
control means the manifesting of Christ.
The Christian who is ready to yield completely to Christ may in the
very moment of yielding trust Christ for the fulness of the Spirit,
knowing that His fruit in life and service is now being produced. The
simple condition of surrender and faith for victory is what gives the
Holy Spirit sway in the life.
What relation has such a crisis of the fulness of the Spirit of
regeneration? Is it a crisis that necessarily must follow the crisis of
the new birth? The answer is clearly given in Galatians 5:25. “If we
live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk.” If we have eternal
life by the miracle work of the Holy Spirit, by that same miracle power
let us live our daily lives moment by moment. There would not need to
be a crisis after conversion if we stayed in the place of abiding where
we started, in full surrender and trust.
The message of Galatians 5:25, in terms of the Holy Spirit’s work, is
precisely the message of Colossians 2:6 in terms of Christ: “As ye
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” In normal regeneration
the child of God is not only born of the Spirit, but filled with the
Spirit. Thousands testify that in that moment their heart was filled
with love, the fruit of the Spirit was produced all at once in the
life. God’s plan is that such a life should abide in Christ, walking
in the Spirit. Only one thing can interrupt such abiding and that is
assertion of self, which is sin, or walking after the flesh. It is
because sin has entered that Christians need the crisis to get back
to where they were, or where they might have been, in the moment of
regeneration.
It is Jesus the Baptist who baptizes with the Holy Spirit those who
believe in Him, the Saviour. And it is Jesus, the Son of man, who is
glorified by the Holy Spirit as He manifests Him in the life yielded to
His control.
Have thine own way, Lord. Have thine own way.
Hold o’er my being absolute sway.
Fill with thy Spirit, till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me.
INDEX TO SCRIPTURES USED.
PAGES.
Gen. 3: 1-6 34
Ex. 17: 7 37
Deut. 6: 16 37
Ps. 18: 1-5 52, 53
18: 2 51
22: 22 49
22, 23 and 24 67
34: 2, 3 45
44: 8 45
103: 3 73
143: 2 107
Pro. 28: 22 44
Isa. 8: 18 50, 51
14: 12-14 56-60
53: 6 79
Jer. 9: 23 45
Matt. 4: 1-11 35
6: 19-24 44
8: 17 73
Luke 4: 1-13 35
John 1: 12 79
1: 12, 13 120
2: 17, 18 53
3: 5, 6 120
5: 19, 30 54
5: 43 58
6: 18, 22 118
7: 38 6
7: 38, 39 122
8: 28 54
8: 34, 35 5, 14, 15
8: 36 72, 118
12: 23, 31, 35, 36 123
14: 10 54
14: 17, 23 119
15: 7 73
15: 11 72
16: 7-11 122
16: 13, 14 122
16: 22 72
17: 1, 22 123
20: 17 49, 50
20: 21 54
Acts 13: 32, 33 50
Rom. 3: 12 107
3: 23 79, 99, 107
4: 16 117
5: 1-4 99
5: 1, 5 124
5: 10 6, 87
6: 1 105
6: 2 83
6: 11 92
6: 13 7
6: 14 5, 20, 72, 74
6: 15 105
6: 23 79
7: 7-24 18-20, 23, 25
8: 1-4 20, 28
8: 2 5, 86
8: 4 125
8: 9 120
8: 11 73
8: 16 90
8: 23-26 100
10: 17 25
13: 10 46
I. Cor. 1: 4-9 86
3: 1-3 83
6: 13 43
6: 19, 20 44, 119, 120
10: 12 94
10: 13 10, 38, 72, 94
12 to 14 125
13 124
15: 41, 42 101
II. Cor. 3: 18 11, 124
5: 1-5 100
8: 9 53
12: 9 5, 77
13: 5 119
Gal. 2: 19-21 30
2: 20 10, 73
2: 21 21
3: 5 125
3: 12 22
3: 14-29 27-29
5: 1 15, 118
5: 6 125
5: 13, 16
5: 16 83
5: 18 5
5: 22, 23 1, 124
5: 25 6, 30, 87, 126
6: 1 83
6: 14 45
Eph. 1: 13, 14 100, 124, 125
2: 8 79
4: 4-16 125
5: 18 125
Phil. 2: 1-11 55-60
4: 6, 7 72
Col. 1: 27 101
2: 6 114, 126
3: 3 73
3: 17 45
II Thes. 2: 3, 4, 9-11 58, 59
Heb. 1: 1-14 48, 49
2: 11-13 49-54
4: 2 7, 26
9: 24, 26, 28 67
10: 19-25 80
12: 1 8
13: 20, 21 67
James 2: 8-11 17
2: 12 21
2: 15-17 117
3: 10-12 85
I Peter 1: 22, 23, 25 26
2: 7, 8 26
2: 16 16
5: 4 67
I John 1: 1 to 2: 6 109-112
1: 5 85
1: 8 108-112
1: 9 12
2: 1 84, 105
2: 16 34, 38-40
2: 28 64
3: 3 98
3: 3, 21, 22, 24 64
3: 9 84
5: 9-13 79
5: 10, 11 89
5: 18 84
III John 2 73
Rev. 21: 5 70
Transcriber’s Note:
This book was written in a period when many words had not become
standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
left unchanged unless indicated below.
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, or
partially printed letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the
end of sentences and abbreviations were added. Quotation marks were
adjusted to matched sets.
Some scriptures listed in the index are not cited in the text.
Spelling correction: What is “Growth [is] in Grace”?
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