MARCH 28TH, 1900

MARCH 28TH, 1900

As regards the Scripture I have always maintained most carefully that as being the inspired record of God’s communications it is the word of God. But the word of God has in my mind a different force. It means to me the revelation of God and of His mind directly or immediately to man. In the case of the fathers this was by direct communication. In the case of Israel God speaks on the mount. He gave His commandments to Moses on the mount. With the prophets it was by the Spirit of Christ in the prophets. Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In the incarnation the Son of God was Himself the Word. In the apostles God gave the Spirit of God that they might know the things that were freely given of God. In the Revelation the mind of God was made known by visions. We find then that there was another stage, namely, that the things ^[p. 158] made known were recorded or taught in words that the Holy Spirit taught, hence we get the body of doctrine. And indeed, without it we could not well communicate with one another. Scripture itself tells us its own value; we find this in 2 Timothy 3:15,16. But I am sure that its good would be frustrated if it hindered our seeing how God has given His mind in a living way, for whatever may be said Scripture never can be other than the letter. The point is to get to the Spirit. I am very sure in my own mind that many of us have put the Scripture in the place of the Spirit of truth as the means of teaching, and when one tries to cast saints more on the anointing, there is a cry that the Scriptures are being made light of. I think that it is extremely important to see that God’s communications to man are directly by the Spirit of the living God. As regards the question of standing, I have no objection to the term being applied to the christian as a justified man here on earth. But the christian is a child of God, and here the term is quite inappropriate. My objection has been to applying the term to such ideas as ‘in Christ’, being ‘risen with him’, ‘dead with him’, ‘quickened with him’, and the like. These all speak of the work of the Spirit in the saint and it is meaningless to speak of them as standing, and further leads to unreality, because the christian takes credit to himself for things which are true for him as though they were true in him.