THE TWO PROCESSES - LIFE AND DEATH

^[p. 262] THE TWO PROCESSES — LIFE AND DEATH

There are two processes going on at the same time in every saint who is making any progress, and they are opposite one to another. One is increase or life, and the other is decrease or death. And when either of these processes is neglected, it will be found that no amount of attention to one will compensate for the lack of it to the other; but on the contrary, the attempt to make one answer for both only betrays the halt or imperfection. “The legs of the lame are not equal”. And the fact of trying to perfect one will not conceal the imperfection of the other, but rather betray it.

Every one with any conscience knows that he is not what he ought to be, that he is not up to the standard that he has seen and accepted.

The first thing is to learn from the word of God the standard for a saint. The standard for man was the law; the standard for a christian is Christ. Now as soon as the standard is accepted, then the two processes must begin. One is to grow in likeness to Christ in the new nature, and the other to cast out and mortify the flesh, the old man.

The thing to understand is that, being born again, I am now to be conformed to the image of Christ. As He is my life, all growth in the new man must be derived from Him by the Spirit of God. There can be no advance but as the eye is on Him. Beholding the glory of the Lord we are changed. It simplifies the matter wonderfully to the soul when you see and are assured that all must come from Christ, and that He is the standard, so that if I say I abide in Him, I must walk even as He walked. This is the first point, that I can do nothing without or apart from Him; that there can be no supply from Him to me but as I realise my link to Him. If I have a lower standard than Christ, I necessarily adopt other means for attaining it. If I ^[p. 263] see that Christ is my standard, and that as I am with Him I am transformed in moral power into His likeness, I know the only means by which I can grow or attain in any measure to my standard, but all this is known only to the new man. It does not appeal to the old man at all, save to demand that it give way to Christ; just as, when Isaac was weaned and Abraham made a great feast for him, then Ishmael’s true character as a persecutor came out, and he was consequently “cast out”, as he deserved; Genesis 21.

Now this is the second process. The growth of the new does not improve the old; on the contrary, it only exposes the incongruity of the two. Ishmael was fourteen years in Abraham’s house before he was cast out, and he was not provoked to mock or persecute until Isaac had acquired his true place there. And just so is the growth of Christ in the soul which alone gives one a truer and deeper sense of the hostility of the flesh. This is not correcting the flesh. The presence of the greater good only exasperates the greater evil. It does not temper or alleviate it, as heat would cold; but, on the contrary, the contrast or collision elicits antagonism. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh”. It is not as with an alkali and an acid, which, neutralising one another, form a new component. This is the Wesleyan notion. But the hostility of the evil, the flesh, intensifies according as the good, or Christ, increases in the soul. The growl of the lion is only more and more savage as the avenger approaches him. There is therefore no remedy, no treatment for the flesh, but complete and absolute denial or death.

The mistake with many is that they begin with the attempt to correct their characters or nature. Every one admits the necessity of self-culture when the standard is not simply Christ. And hence, after much self-control and education, they do not make any true progress. They may be able to attain an appearance among men, as the Pharisees had done, but there is ^[p. 264] really no growth in Christ. Their knowledge and apprehension of or satisfaction in Him is not one bit increased, and their own consciences are not satisfied by their attainments. Their old tendencies and tastes break out when they least expect it, and they feel they have to begin all over again. With this class there is generally a better appearance, because the flesh is not so openly or manifestly opposed as when there is a distinct attempt to displace it. The lion would rather be tamed than put to death. It may entail serious trouble to tame him, but he cannot be trusted. Just so with the flesh; while there is only a correcting of it, it never discloses its real animosity to Christ. And in a way the flesh is flattered by its own apparent improvement.

Now when the truth has been received that there is nothing good in the flesh, and that it is not susceptible of improvement, a new danger arises which I would particularly refer to. It is this: that as there is no good but in Christ, and He is the only source of it, if He be accepted in this light, all is thought to be right, and then the flesh is in a way overlooked or left to itself. Isaac is indeed chief in the house, but Ishmael is allowed to stay too; he is not felt to be intolerable and incongruous. Or, in plain language, with the acceptance of high truth, self-denial is often less than before. Now this is very sad, and tends always to decline and loss of enjoyment in the truth. When Christ has His true and rightful place in me, the opposition of the flesh is so felt that the only treatment for it is casting it out — mortification. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts”. And hence, the more I am in the power of His life, the more do I deny myself in order that His life may be manifested in my body. Every impediment to this is to be removed.

If my body had no will in it, then, as a mere structure from the hands of God, there would be nothing in me to hinder the manifestation of the life of Jesus, But because there is a law in my members warring against ^[p. 265] the law of my mind, and as there cannot be any absorption of the flesh, and it cannot be got rid of in any way but by crucifixion, it is evident that the more I am set on manifesting the life of Jesus in my body, the more is it required that I should mortify every will in it, and put off everything which would mar or hinder its expression.

As to standing before God, I start with being crucified with Christ; and hence in the greatest practice I can only reach up to my true place in Christ, and my practice is only true as I act up to my standing in Christ where I am crucified, “Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”. Hence, according as Christ lives in me, and uses my body according to His own will and for His service, there must be a constant practical denial of the desires of the flesh with its ways and habits. So in Colossians 2 I find that, because I am complete in Him, I am both circumcised, the body of the flesh is put off, and also my status as a man is gone in baptism. If a person assumes to be occupied with Christ and delighting in His mind and ways, and yet does not manifest in his body the life of Jesus, where is there any evidence of the power of His life? If I excuse myself by saying I am used to such a thing, and therefore I must retain it, I thereby assert that the natural propensity in me is stronger than the life of Jesus. However completely the life is manifested, it must be through the bearing about of the dying of Jesus. How could it appear if that which balks it were not removed? And it must be removed prior to the manifestation. That is, I have to keep under my body and bring it into subjection. I have to judge myself. I have to refuse morally the working of the will, that I may be a vessel for the Lord, doing His will, and though it be death to the outer man, yet assuring my heart of the eternal weight of glory before me. It is not only that I am like Enoch, well-pleasing to Him, but He shows His delight in me by manifesting Himself.

^[p. 266] The ways of wisdom are the ways of pleasantness and peace. The more the life of Jesus has sway in me, the more it is full enough in me to show itself in details; the more, even in my own heart, must I admire its beauty and perfection, and instead of finding that anything has been lost by the setting aside of my own will, “the carnal mind”, I find I have gained immensely in the commonest duties of life, because it is the life of a perfect man which is now manifested through my body, which heretofore was the medium of the desires of the flesh and of the mind. But now these latter are denied and consigned to death, to make room for the full exhibition of the other. So that I have to refuse and disregard every taste or every way with which I cannot connect Christ. He becomes as indispensable to me in my course now as oxygen is for my natural life. Without Him I must droop and become helpless in everything.

The apple-tree will illustrate these two processes. The gardener promotes the growth of the new graft which will grow apples; but at the same time, in the same tree, he represses and plucks off every bud of the crab-tree on which the apple graft has been set. The best apple graft will not improve the crab stem. The only way to deal with the latter is to refuse every bud or manifest working of it. All care must now be devoted to the growth of the apple graft. If you were to cultivate the one with the utmost attention, and yet neglect the other, the fruit would suffer. If you were to devote all your attention to the crab-tree, you would never have an apple, and if you were to attend exclusively to the apple graft and be indifferent as to the budding and growth of the crab, you would soon find that the fruit would suffer both as to size and quality. The truth is that a new plant, the life of Jesus through grace, is set up in me, and the more my eye is on Him, the more it grows, and the more it demands that everything which interferes with the manifestation of itself in my ^[p. 267] body where it is set should be renounced and cast out, as a gardener would cast out weeds and stones, and everything which would interfere with the roots of the valued plants. And hence the evidence or assurance of growth is not merely study of and delight in heavenly things, but in the increasing and careful self-denial of every interruption to the manifestation of this life. The sensibility is so increased that the smallest thing that would hinder or obstruct is detected and at once removed, as eagerly as a mote would be removed from the natural eye. For the more the life increases in us the more the sensibilities of it will be felt; and its development is checked unless there be prompt self-denial of that which opposes it. If the body is to be controlled by the life of Jesus, flesh must retire. Thus as His life increases in us, the flesh must sensibly give way and die.