LIFE
[p. 104] LIFE
I have stated on previous occasions my purpose in these addresses, namely, to bring under your attention the great characteristics of Christianity. I have tried to take them up in a sort of moral sequence, and have already spoken of light and liberty. If the state of the world and man is darkness, alienation from God, and ignorance, then the first thing that must come into the world is light from God, God must needs reveal Himself in some way suited to man’s condition. But then, when God reveals Himself, there is this to be said, that man cannot go back to the knowledge of God which he had in the garden of Eden, that would not suit the case. What Adam might have known of God would not suit man now. He knew God as a beneficent Creator; but Adam was an innocent man, he had no knowledge of evil, and knew nothing about the grace or love of God; and the knowledge of God which was open to Adam would not suit man now as fallen and a sinner. For the fact that I have been in darkness and in ignorance of God, necessitates that if I am to be put in touch with God, I must know Him in the grace suited to my condition. The gospel is the glad tidings of the grace of God, God making Himself known in a way suited to man in the condition in which man is; God comes out in the light of what He is, in the light of His love. It is plain that the first principle and characteristic of Christianity must be light; “God, who commanded that out of darkness light should shine”, the apostle says, “has shone into our hearts, for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”.
What I spoke of last time was liberty. And the [p. 105] reason of that, too, is evident, for man is by nature in bondage to principles in this world which are contrary to God; and therefore, if he is to enter into blessing and into the enjoyment of God, of necessity he must be set free. The bondage in which man is held is dreadful: the Lord describes the condition of man, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin”. Man, though he commits sin, thinks that his heart may be good. The Lord does not estimate it in that way at all. Again, man is under Satan’s power, as the god of this world; and when he is awakened he comes under law, here again he is in bondage. And I repeat that, if man is to be in the enjoyment of God’s revelation of Himself, and to enter into relationship with God, deliverance from this condition of bondage is indispensable. Not only does he need to know that in the grace of God he is justified, but he needs to be delivered from the terrible condition of bondage in which he is. You get a simple illustration of it in scripture in the case of the children of Israel. They could not worship God in Egypt. To worship God they must be brought out of Egyptian bondage, and come into the wilderness. The call of God to Pharaoh was to let the people of God go that they might offer Him sacrifices in the wilderness; while they were in the bondage of Egypt they were not in a condition to worship God; they were in a condition to groan, and they did groan by reason of their taskmasters. But when God had delivered them from bondage, then it was they could worship God.
So in the present day, to come into the enjoyment of the light of God you must get deliverance from sin, legality, and the world; and the way in which deliverance from these things is reached, I think you find, as I pointed out in my last address, in John 4, John 5 and John 6. We learn there how a believer is set free from bondage that he may enter into the blessed [p. 106] revelation which God has been pleased to give of Himself, in other words that he may enter upon life — that is the first great point in the gospel of John. It is not simply a question of entering upon the knowledge of forgiveness, and enjoying the grace of God in that sense. It is perfectly true that a Christian is entitled to enjoy the knowledge of forgiveness, but that is not the end of God’s purpose concerning him. The purpose of God is that he may pass out of death into life, into what is for him wholly new, as stated in John 3. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life”. The thought of God does not stop short of eternal life. It is a wonderful thing to come into life while down here.
I purpose tonight to speak a little about life as revealed in Christianity, what the divine idea of life is. I can understand, to a certain extent, what life will be with God’s people in the millennium, since the whole condition of things here will be changed. When Christ comes in glory it must alter everything here; He will come first to execute judgment, to put down opposition and oppression; Satan will be bound, and the power of death set aside. And as regards the people of God, they come under the power and influence of the Spirit, and the law is, in a sense, their life, because it is written in their hearts; they do not get life by doing, they get life by Christ; but the condition of their life is this, that having deliverance and the enjoyment of temporal blessings, they love God with all their heart, and their neighbour as themselves. They will be relieved of the judgment of death, and will all know God as the God of grace, and will be thus brought into the blessings of the new covenant. That is what will be brought to them at the coming of the Lord. But that is not the character of things [p. 107] in Christianity. I have already used one expression which at once marks the difference, we pass out of death into life: we not only have eternal life, and do not come into judgment, but are passed out of death into life; if I may use the expression, we come on to a completely new platform where we never were before. That is not exactly the case with Israel. They come into the promises given to the fathers, but they do not reach an entirely different platform from that on which they were before. But in Christianity you do; you pass out of death into life — that is what I want now to make plain.
If you ask me what life is, I reply that, in my judgment, life is power to live. Life in a natural sense is the power to live as a distinct being. When I speak of it in a moral sense in the Christian, life is the power to live in the position in which it has pleased God in His grace to place me. That is the idea of it in scripture, it stands in that relation. Hence you must first accept in faith the position which it has pleased God to give you, and it is quite useless to talk about life until you know the position in which you are to live. God put man in a certain position according to His own pleasure at the beginning, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul”, and what for? To enjoy the position which God had designed for him. So, too, it is with the Christian. God in grace places the believer in a certain position before Himself, which is light to the soul, and life is the power to enjoy that position. I think that is perfectly simple. There may be a great deal which takes place in a man antecedent to that, the result of the work of God, but that is not the relation in which life stands in scripture. Life is dependent on the position. I will give you an illustration of it. In John 20 the first thing the Lord revealed was the position. He said, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God”. Then He breathes on the disciples, and says, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost”; that is, He communicated to them the power to form them to enjoy the position in which it had pleased Him in grace to place them. Every family in heaven and on earth is named of God, in relation to our Lord Jesus Christ; He gives place and position to every family. If it pleases Him to put us in the position of children, he gives us the power of life suited to it. And you must remember this — the position is one in which man never was before. I could not say exactly the same thing of an earthly people, because I think they have previously had something of the same position. But in the case of a heavenly people, as the church, the position is a totally new one according to the will of God. God has been pleased to reveal His name in connection with the new calling, or, to put it in the language of Hebrews 2, God is bringing many sons unto glory. It is a fresh revelation of God’s will, a totally new calling and position, outside a man’s position here upon the earth as God’s creature. I am left here for a short time, it may be, to fill out the remains of my life in flesh. But the calling of God is apart from that; this is according to God’s eternal purpose; man never was in it before, it is that which God has been pleased to give to us in His grace.
Then comes in the question of life. But to enter into life we must be in the enjoyment of deliverance, because we who are to enter into this new position were naturally in complete bondage to what is contrary to God, to sin, the world, and Satan; and therefore we need to be delivered from the bondage in which we were held. Liberty is essential; as the Lord says, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”.
[p. 109] In speaking of the liberty of the house, I must refer first to the new position in which the grace of God has placed us, and then speak of the power in the case of the Christian to enjoy that position. I would first notice two things in the passage I have read in Philippians. The first is in verse 12, you are to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. And then in verse 13, “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure”; that is, we are to be here, as I understand it, for God’s good pleasure, He works in -us to that end. Then it goes on, “Do all things without murmurings and disputings: that ye may be blameless and harmless” — now mark the position — “the children of God” — it is a totally new position — “the children of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life” — that is our testimony, it is the way in which we shine as lights in the world. But the first great point to seize hold of is the position, namely, “children of God” — I have changed the word “sons” to “children”, because “children” is the right word there. It is the verification of what is spoken of in John 5: 25, you are “passed out of death into life”, as we see in 1 John 3: 14, “by this we know that we have passed from death into life, because we love the brethren”; “you work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. What I understand by this is the deliverance of the soul from the influence and power of all that is contrary to God, so that we may come out in the force of a new character; God works in us for His good pleasure, and we are here in a totally new position, the fulfilment of what we get in John 1, where, referring to the Lord Jesus, it says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he title to take the place of the children of God”, to take a [p. 110] completely new place in which they never were before.
Now I want to say one word as to the way in which it is reached in the soul. The first part of the chapter refers to the Lord personally, and you find there the path by which Christ has reached His present position in glory. It was through obedience unto death; He “became obedient unto death”, in order that He might enter upon life according to the purpose of God in man. He was in life here: “in him was life”: I do not speak of that at this moment, but of Him as He was down here, in the place of humiliation. This was not the setting forth of man according to the purpose of God; although it was man perfectly for God’s glory in the place He was in, it was not man according to His purpose. As has often been said, in humiliation Christ came into the place of the responsible man that He might glorify God there, but then through death He enters upon an entirely new order of things; “He asked life” — you get that expression in Psalm 20 — and it was given to Him, “even length of days for ever and ever”. His glory is great in God’s salvation. That is what comes out here. Obedience unto death was the way for Him to enter into life, as man, according to the glorious purpose of God.
Now see how it comes out: “Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death”. If He had not been in life He could not have become obedient unto death, that is plain enough. He takes death in obedience, He becomes “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every [p. 111] tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. He enters by resurrection into the place of glory which God had purposed for man, and “God hath highly exalted him”, set Him far above all heavens that He might fill all things; it is obedience unto death leading into the scene of life according to the glory of God.
When we come to the following verse, we have the same principle coming out in the Christian. It says, “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure”. I will tell you how you “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”, as I understand it. I think it is in the acceptance of death, that is, that in Christ God has in grace brought death in upon the man that offended, and reconciliation to God is in the acceptance of that great truth. We must not revive the offender, and I think it is in that way we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling; the offender has to be kept practically in the place of death, because God has, by the work of the cross, condemned the offender in the One who stood in his place. You know who the offender was; I scarcely need to tell you that it was the man to whom God entrusted much, and who lost everything entrusted to him. But I say that in the cross of Christ the offender has been removed for the glory of God. Now you have to accept that; you have to accept what has often been spoken of, the end in death of the first man. If you mean to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, you have got to take good care that under no pretext whatever is the offender to be revived; because as sure as possible, if he revive, he will bring you into bondage. People do revive the offender under various pretexts,
[p. 112] and a very common one is prudence; they allow themselves to be influenced by the ways of the world, what the world would call prudence, but which is very near akin to covetousness. The flesh is always ready to bring us into bondage, if it be allowed, under all sorts of pleas and pretexts. But we have to walk in the truth that God has removed the offender to His own glory, that we might be a new creation in Christ; in other words, in order that He might introduce the new man.
Now in the application to us of the truth, the flesh has been condemned that we might live in the Spirit in connection with the new position in which it has pleased God to place us through redemption. It is the grace of God which has given us this position; the place of children is ours by Christ’s gift and the Father’s love, and that is the place we have before God. Now the point is this, the offender can only hinder you there; nothing will serve you but the Spirit of God; you could not possibly be in that relationship to God except as supported by the Spirit of God. Israel will not have the Spirit in that way. They will have the Spirit upon them, but they do not enter into our relationship with God. They are God’s people here upon the earth, but they do not become a heavenly people, the children of God in that sense. If the grace of God puts us in that place, then nothing will support us there except the Spirit of God; “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God”.
I have spoken thus far of the position and the power by which you can be in that position. Now I want to refer to the office of the Spirit in the believer, to the Spirit as life in the believer. Scripture says, “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness”. Life in the believer means that Christ lives in him. The apostle says, “I through law have died to law to live to God”, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”. Allow me to say to every Christian here tonight, You live to God exactly in the measure in which Christ lives in you, for that is the only thing which God recognises now as life in the believer, Christ in the Spirit. The apostle says in the passage I quoted, “The Spirit is life because of righteousness”. I understand by this that the believer’s soul is now completely identified with the Spirit, and the Spirit with the believer; it does not say the Spirit is the power of life, for that would not be identification, and the identification is complete between the believer and the Spirit. You get the Spirit as the Spirit of sonship, but it does not speak of the Spirit as the Spirit of life in the believer. It speaks of the Spirit as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”, but that is I judge, an objective thought; but when the subjective side is spoken of, that is, as to what is in the believer, “the Spirit is life”. As the apostle says to the Galatians, “if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit”. I urge this point, while I fully maintain the personality of the Spirit, but the Spirit is life in the believer. And the reason is “because of righteousness”. As I understand it, the first principle of righteousness is this — you do not allow sin. “The body is dead because of sin”, it is held there because of sin, “but the Spirit is life because of righteousness”. Properly speaking, there is no room for the flesh where the Spirit is; you have no title to revive the offender; that is the idea. But “the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you should not do the things to which you are inclined”. The Spirit sets Himself against the flesh, so that the flesh should receive no quarter in the Christian, you are not to tamper with it, nor allow it in any [p. 114] form or shape. It is a terrible thing on the field of battle where no quarter is given or asked, but that is the case between the flesh and the Spirit. The refusal of the flesh is the very first principle of righteousness. How could it be righteous for the Christian to save what God has condemned? Yet how often we do it! how often we give licence to the flesh! It cannot be urged too strongly that in reconciliation God has removed the offender for His own glory. We ought to be very much ashamed indeed where any quarter is given to the flesh — it is not righteousness.
Now I come to another principle in righteousness, which is the recognition of obligation. You would not think of a man in the world as a righteous man if he did not recognise obligation. If I failed to recognise the obligation under which I am placed in regard to my wife and children, I should not be a righteous man. In common things in everyday life, if a man does not recognise his obligation to his fellow men he cannot be regarded as righteous. Righteousness under the law was this, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself”. It was the recognition of obligation (which righteousness always is) to God and to a neighbour. Now how is righteousness carried out in the Christian? Simply in the Spirit. The Spirit brings the soul of the believer under the influence of the love of God: “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us”, and in that way the Spirit maintains the believer in the sense of obligation. Every Christian is under the deepest obligation to God; and it is of the Spirit to keep your soul in the recognition of that obligation. It is a cardinal principle of righteousness in the Christian; and righteous conduct in the Christian is this, that I act [p. 115] toward others as I have been acted to; what God is toward me I am to be toward others, I am to love as God has loved me. And even in regard to God Himself, “We love him because he first loved us”. It is not the obligation to abstain from what a man as fallen is prone to, as was the case under the law. The Christian is taught by the Spirit the love of God, and every obligation of the Christian flows from the love of God towards him. You will not get on much farther if you are not there. We can make no headway except in proportion as our hearts are kept under the influence of God’s love, the blessed spring of everything in Christianity. Therefore, when you come to what is practical in Romans 12 the first thing is love, “Let love be unfeigned; abhorring that which is evil, cleaving to that which is good”. It is the essence, the very first principle of practical Christianity, that the soul is under the influence of the love of God. By the Spirit I recognise the obligation under which the love of God has placed me, and in that sense the Christian is righteous even as Christ is righteous. If I might speak with reverence of the Lord Jesus as a Man down here, law was not the measure of His walk. He was, as a Man down here, the perfect object of the love of God, and in this was the spring of His conduct as man. The Lord says, “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live because of the Father”. He lived because of the Father. And so, in John 17, He prays, as to His disciples, “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”. He says, “I have kept my Father’s commandments, and continue in his love”. The love of the Father to Him was the mainspring of all He was as a Man down here.
Now I come to another point, that is, by the Spirit we cry, “Abba, Father”, that not only is the Spirit life because of righteousness, but it is by [p. 116] the Spirit, and by the Spirit only, that we enter upon and live in the relationship in which it has pleased God to place us. Christ was the first to say “Abba, Father”; and there is not a soul here tonight which can cry “Abba, Father” except in the power of the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of sonship. It has been very often said that the sure sign of a person having received the Spirit is that he cries, “Abba, Father”; because no one can cry, “Abba, Father” without the Spirit. “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father”; that is, the believer has now passed out of death into life, he has come on to a completely new platform, into a new place which the grace of God has given him according to eternal counsels. I was dwelling on the fact last time in connection with John 5 that you get the Father’s name revealed as a name of relationship to the believer, so that the Lord could say in John 20, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”.
I think you will see that the question of righteousness is a first principle with the Christian, because we have been under the power of sin, and it is righteousness that the offender should not be revived, and that we recognise the obligation under which we have been placed by the love of God. We cannot go on a bit without righteousness, and righteousness is the recognition of obligation. It must be so with the Christian; it is different, of course, with God; everything is different with God. He acts in the sovereignty of love. But with the Christian the love of God is the mainspring of conduct. He can do nothing right apart from it; he cannot originate love, no creature can; but he loves exactly in proportion as he knows that he is loved; that is righteousness, and characterises his condition, for “the Spirit is life because of righteousness”
[p. 117] Then equally, the Spirit is the Spirit of sonship. Here in Philippians you are to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”, which is, as I have said, the acceptance of death in obedience; you become identified with Christ’s death by which you are reconciled to God. Scripture lays stress upon that; “you now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death”. But what comes out next? “It is God that works in you to will and to do of his good pleasure”. Now you come on to a new platform, children of God “in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation”, they do not understand you at all. None the less you are “children of God, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life”; you are out of the wreck and ruin around, you are really out of death and have entered upon the platform of life, and you hold forth the word of life; it is the blessed collective testimony of Christians. “By this we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren” — there is the testimony of life in the christian circle.
May God give us to understand it. I do not see any difficulty about it; but where I do see practical difficulty is in the soul entering into the deliverance that is there for it. It is the acceptance of death upon the offender which is the practical difficulty. If you get over that difficulty, the rest is plain sailing, for the simple reason that the Spirit is life, and the Spirit too, as the Spirit of sonship, bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. May He give to us to see the great truth that life is revealed, and that we pass out of death into life, that there is a new platform on which we can stand; though we still have to remain here in the world, and “live in flesh”, as the scripture puts it, “by the faith of the Son of God” — though that is not our [p. 118] life to God, for there Christ lives in us. It is a wonderful thing to be down here in this world in the knowledge of the Father’s name revealed to us as a name of relationship, so that we can stand in peace in the Father’s presence, knowing that we are the objects of His love, and supported in it by the Spirit of God. May He give us understanding and lead us on by the steps which I have tried to place before you. First the light of the gospel, God revealing Himself there; then the liberty which properly belongs to the Christian from sin, legality, and the world; and then the privilege of being children of God, in which we are maintained by the power of God in us, though still living here in flesh.