THE CHRISTIAN CONFLICT

THE CHRISTIAN CONFLICT

The proof of the real value and force of life - the life of Christ in us - is the way and manner in which it resists the opposition of the flesh, and not only how it resists, but how it expresses itself in place of that which it has resisted. I have a new nature; its instinct and standard is Christ. He is my life, and ^[p. 210] the only measure for my walk. The Spirit of God is the power to enable me to act according to my new nature, both as to its instinct and standard. Now if I were in heaven there would be no check to this new life; there would be perennial sunshine and everlasting verdure; but here, on the contrary, everything is adverse to it, because the flesh is enmity against God, and this is in myself and in everyone around me; I am here like a diver in a diving-bell - everything around me, the very element I am dwelling in, is fatal to me unless I can resist it; and I must not only resist it, but I must express an action in it - quite new and unknown to that which opposes me. It is not enough for the diver to exist under water, but he must also act there. A saint now has not only to know that he is safe in Christ, that his life is hid in Him and that he is at home with Him above, but he is set here to show forth the virtues of Him who has called him out of darkness into His marvellous light. And hence everything of the flesh in himself, and in everyone with whom he comes in contact, becomes a trying of his grace. If he meets flesh with flesh he is vanquished; if he overcomes it, he glorifies Christ. There may be great or little foes, but, whatever they be, they are the enemies to whom we are not to yield. And each of us has his own foes to resist, and not only so, but to set forth, in place of and in contrast to that which he has resisted, the way and manner of Christ.

Now the first opposition you meet is in yourself, and then in everyone else. It is the force of the flesh. You are called on to repel it, and if you cannot repel that force, you can repel none. Hence private life is the beginning of the campaign. If you cannot run with the footmen, what will you do with the horsemen? The contrarieties begin at home, or more properly they begin first within. If you cannot resist them in the inner circle, how can you face the outer one? But they are to be resisted, and they are the force ^[p. 211] which you are called on to resist, and to set Christ on the ground which they once occupied. It will not do for you to say, This is unreasonable. Doubtless it is; the enemy - the flesh in yourself or anyone else - can never do anything that is unreasonable to Christ. But you must meet it in quite another way; you must say, Here is one of the seven nations - the Canaanites - whom I have to expel. I must not give him any quarter; I must resist him and set up in his place the Israel of God. If you complain of your foes, either the inward or the outward ones, your strength is less than theirs; you are unwittingly making Christ inferior to them, or else you are thinking of yourself as still in the old man. I am not merely to find fault with my enemies - the carnality in myself and in others - I am simply to resist them in the grace of Christ, and to set up, on the ruins of the foe, the beauty and comeliness of Christ.