THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE

F. C. Mutton

Romans 8: 1–4, 12–16; John 7: 37–39; Ephesians 2: 18–22

Following our reading, I feel that the Lord would be in our speaking on the wonderful fact that the Holy Spirit is here. We saw in Acts 9 that an essential part of the blessing into which Saul of Tarsus entered was the reception of the Holy Spirit. It is one of the most wonderful things we could speak of that a divine Person has come down from a glorified Christ. It says in John 7, “The Spirit was not yet”. That was when the Lord Jesus was here on earth. The Spirit was not yet given to men, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. But now He has been glorified and one of the first things that happened consequent upon that was that He poured out the Holy Spirit— poured out! That reflects the fulness and the infinite grace with which He delighted to bestow this choice gift on men. The ground had been cleared. Christ was glorified and there were men on earth who had faith in Him, and those men were assembled in the upper room in early Acts. They were men whom the Lord had called, secured, and formed, and they were thus available to be filled by the Holy Spirit.

I would that we might have a deepened and fresh impression of the glory, majesty, fulness, and wonder of the day in which we live when, first of all, Christ has been glorified and, consequent upon

that, the Spirit has been poured out, God’s own Spirit. He is a divine Person, whose power therefore cannot be limited; one of the Trinity, yet deigning to take up His dwelling in men whose hearts have been purified through the gospel, through the work of Christ. There is in the Spirit, and will be to the end of this dispensation, a divine power equal to every situation.

It does, of course, necessitate that there is room for Him in my heart if I am to benefit from His presence, and that is where the exercises of Romans come in. But there is a wonderful triumph about the beginning of Romans 8—“There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. That certainly means that there is no condemnation from God, but also there is no self-condemnation. The end of Romans 7 is full of self-condemnation, ending, in “O

wretched man that I am”—a man who wants to do what is right and has no power to do it;

“for that which I do, I do not own—for not what I will, this I do; but what I hate”. He was doing the opposite to what he really wanted to do; the things he did were the things he really hated doing. I am sure that most of us have had this experience. A terrible struggle was going on within this man, and he was brought to the conclusion, “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell: for to will is there with me, but to do right I find not”. He had a consciousness of what was right, but no power to do it; and so he says, “O wretched man that I am!” He comes to the end of himself. God would bring us to that. If any of us have never come to it before, let us come to it now. God does not want us to go on being wretched men; He does not want us to go on in this state of inward strife, disappointment and struggle. This man finds deliverance. He says, “Who shall deliver me out of this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself with the mind serve God’s law”

(Romans 7: 24, 25). He puts

his feet down on the solid ground of the work of God in himself.

I am sure we can say of everyone here this afternoon that the work of God is in us; in each one of us God has begun something. You may say, ‘Well, you need a magnifying glass to see it’, but nevertheless it has begun. There is something there that God has started. Now put the right label on it—“I myself”. Those other things, the tendency to do what is wrong, the weakness you find when you want to do what is right, that is not ‘myself’, it is the flesh. But then there is “I myself”, the work of God, what God has done in you and in me, something which is the work of the Spirit, something which has been effected through the work of Christ. You and I are to take our stand on that, and the Spirit links Himself with it.

So Paul says in Romans 8, “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”.

That is your standing. It is “I myself”, the work of God, my true personality, the fruit of the Spirit’s work—I am among those who are “in Christ Jesus”. I am no longer “in flesh”. What I am in Christ Jesus has never been under the bondage and domination of sin. And there is no condemnation. Can you think of Christ Jesus, that blessed Man where He now is, coming under condemnation? The thought is impossible! Therefore no condemnation can attach to us, and the Spirit would strengthen us in our minds to lay hold of this. The mind is so important in Romans 8 and it is vital in our soul histories to cling to these great facts. Romans 8 tells us what God has done with the flesh, the total thing, and that includes the flesh in me—“God having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”.

So we look at the cross; we contemplate Him there; and we see there God’s assessment of the

flesh; condemned, in that place of utter shame, the place of abandonment, wrath, and death.

God has in His own Son condemned sin in the flesh. Thank God, that is the way out for me, for what I am according to the flesh has been ended in the sight of God at the cross, and God is no longer looking at me as in flesh, but as “in Christ Jesus”.

But then the Spirit comes in—“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”. So there is this initial reckoning, that I am in Christ Jesus, and then the experience of the power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that sets me along the way of life, liberty, and deliverance, free from any condemnation, either from without or from within. It is life “in Christ Jesus”; what a wonderful thing!—experienced in the power of the Spirit. And now there is power. It says God “has condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”. It is a new principle; not a constantly ebbing and flowing conflict to do what is right, but in a new life and a new power what is right is fulfilled. We have often noticed that it does not say that the law is kept, but that the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled. There is a certain fulness about it; it is the energy and power of life.

As this chapter goes on the Spirit is brought before us as the power to maintain this victory—

this experience of deliverance. We still have our bodies, and the flesh is still in them, but we have a power in the Spirit which is greater than the power of the flesh; “If, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live—for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. Sons of God do not live in struggle and strife and most certainly they do not live in

sin. They live as being led by the Spirit of God. It is the wonderful fruit of divine operations that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, has persons who are subject and available to Him, in whom He has taken up His abode, whom He can lead in a path of life and joy according to the will of God. “Ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. What a position to be brought to! He is a Spirit of adoption, and our links with the Father are bright and clear. No distance now, no bondage, no cloud between us and the Father. We cry, “Abba, Father”. It is a cry of joy, a cry of relationship, a cry of communion; I think we could say it is a cry of worship, as we discern in the Father the blessed Source of all this favour and grace.

Meanwhile the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. How wonderful! We belong to the divine family. We are of God—John would put it that way. As we go along in our path God regards us as heirs, and Christ’s joint heirs. I think we have had impressions as together of the immense riches and wealth of what God has for His children, for His sons. Paul speaks of the things that God has prepared for them that love Him, and nothing on earth can compare with that of which we are the heirs. Paul adds, “If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him”. It is a time of suffering. As regards our position in the world it is bound to be—if we are preserved in faithfulness—a time of reproach and limitation. But our outlook is glory—“That we may also be glorified with him”.

When His time of public glory comes, in the world to come, He will not fail to see that His own who have suffered with Him are glorified with Him.

Now in John 7 we have the Lord Jesus saying, “He that believes on me, as the scripture has said,

out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive”. This is the effect of the Spirit being received. We have considered what He is inwardly to those who have received Him, relating to the fulfilment of their obligations, and too as their blessed link with the Father. But this is something outward, something that flows out from the believer. It cannot be otherwise than that if this wondrous divine gift is received there must be immense results. The Spirit loves to use persons. We see that with the Lord in connection with Saul of Tarsus. The Lord did certain things Himself, but He used others, like Ananias, to do other things. And the Spirit does act by Himself; we cannot limit Him; but He also loves to use persons as vehicles for the expression of His own fulness. You could hardly have a greater expression of fulness in pouring out from the believer than this—“Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”.

The Spirit has been poured out from a glorified Christ, and there is now to be a pouring out from the believer.

How we need this, dear brethren. We owe it to one another, and we owe it to men. Whether it is the gospel, or the truth as enjoyed among ourselves, it must be, if it is to be effective, in the power of the Holy Spirit. “Out of his belly”—that is, something inward has happened. There has been inward purification, and the Spirit is dwelling inwardly, and out of a person flow rivers of living water. So we become channels of life for the benefit of others, a most important thing in local companies. If you have one or two people like this in a meeting there will be a current, a life-giving supply, of what is of the Spirit of God Himself rivers of living water—a kind of anticipation of what we have in the Revelation, the river of water of life, bright as crystal, going out of the throne

of God and of the Lamb.

As to our last scripture, Paul, of course, in Ephesians brings out the fulness of God’s purpose.

I have been thinking of this chapter because it seems to fit in with our experiences and histories in recent times. In the preceding verses Paul speaks of the middle wall of enclosure, enmity, the law of commandments in ordinances, all this kind of thing in which we have been involved, and in which Jew and Gentile were involved, and in which they were alienated.

And now the effect of the work of Christ is, “Ye who once were afar off are become nigh by the blood of the Christ. For he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of enclosure, having annulled the enmity in his flesh, the law of commandments in ordinances, that he might form the two in himself into one new man, making peace; and might reconcile both in one body to God by the cross, having by it slain the enmity”.

It impresses me, dear brethren, that these great divine resources are still available, the blood, the annulling of the enmity, the cross, and the glad tidings of peace. Here are the divine means available so that persons who are alienated and separated may be brought together, not on the basis of sinking differences and difficulties, but in the light of the cross and the blood.

So that, righteously, reconciliation is entered into, and the will of God prevails among His own. May we experience this.

Then it goes on—“through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father”, another wondrous service of the Spirit. It is something experienced together. In assembly privilege we enjoy this glorious access—far exceeding the ascent by which Solomon went up—access through Christ, in all the infinite glory and worth of His Person; we approach through Him by one Spirit to

the Father. So we approach the Father in perfect acceptance. How delighted He is to see His own approach Him thus!—no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God. O may we rise to these great thoughts, alienation and enmity and all that kind of thing righteously disposed of through the work of Christ, and what is brought in is one new man. Thus all these privileges open up—fellow-citizenship, and the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. That verse has impressed me of late. There is something now—we are not for a moment saying there are still Pauls, or Peters, or Johns—which is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets—and what is built in has something in common with the character and fibre of these persons, otherwise it could not be built upon that foundation.

This is the work of Christ and of the Spirit, Jesus Christ Himself being the corner stone regulating everything, “in whom all the building fitted together increases to a holy temple in the Lord”. We have not lost sight of the Lord and His rights, His authority, His commandments; He regulates everything. He is the corner stone. It is a temple, a place of divine dwelling and a place of divine communication. “In whom”, that is, in the Lord, “ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”. It is a place where God dwells.

The household of God is spoken of in verse 19 and the habitation of God in verse 22. These are supreme privileges, dear brethren. They should take precedence over everything else in our minds, that there should be no obstruction to the Lord whose title is mentioned here, “A holy temple in the Lord”, and no obstruction to the Spirit, so that God may have these great things for His own joy and His own service, and that you and I may righteously have part in them for His pleasure. May it be so in

His name!

Address in Auckland, N.Z.
7 October 1979