THE POWER OF THE GLAD TIDINGS
I desire if the Lord gives me grace, dear brethren, to speak about the power of the glad tidings. This epistle, as we know, develops the teaching as to the glad tidings of God, and as the saints of God, we all need to be instructed about the glad tidings. We read in the first chapter, that Paul was not ashamed of the glad tidings because, he says, “It is God’s power to salvation to every one who believes”.
The glad tidings is not only the means by which we are justified and receive pardon, but it is the power of God unto salvation; that is to say, there is a power in the glad tidings able to make us entirely superior to all that the enemy could use to gain power or influence over us. This is a most important question, for the epistle to the Romans, while it has an individual character, has the assembly in view. Paul always has the assembly before him in all his ministry. The Lord had said as to the assembly that “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”, and yet, alas, the enemy prevails against us individually sometimes. And if he gains a victory against any of us, he gains this in measure against the assembly. “Hades gates”, the Lord says, “shall not prevail against it”, and this is true, thank God. It will always go on, and always do so victoriously. What is important for us all is that we should be exercised, beginning to be so at a young age, to have the victory, not to be overcome either by the world or by the flesh, nor by whatever the enemy may use to rob God of His portion in His people. You remember that the Lord said towards the end of His path down here, “be of good courage; I have overcome the world”. Apparently, it could have been said that the enemy had gained the victory, for the Lord was on the point of being taken and crucified. But He says, “I have overcome the world”. “The ruler of this world comes”, He says again, “and he has nothing in me”. There was nothing with the Lord that answered in the very least measure to any evil suggestion whatever, and there was nothing with Him either that could be intimidated by the violence of the enemy. He was firm as a rock in maintaining the truth; this is why He could say, “I have overcome the world”. Paul could say the same at the end of his course: “I have combated the good combat”. Not, “I have fought a good fight”, KJV. He was not saying that he had fought well, but that the fight in which he had been engaged was the good fight. “I have combated the good combat”. The only combat which is worth the pain of participating is the combat for the truth. It is marked by dignity; it has God’s interest and support. “I have fought the good fight”, Paul says. If I have made allusion to what is seen in the Lord and then in Paul, it is to show what I believe to be important for us now, to know that God proposes that we should finish in victory. It is not a defeated people that the Lord is going to take to Himself, but a victorious people. If you want to be victorious, it is necessary to be established in the epistle to the Romans. This epistle, especially the first part, with chapter 5 as its culmination, envisages that we should be made completely victorious over the power of the flesh, and the power of the world, and finally victorious also in our circumstances, as we see at the end of the chapter, all this so that we finish our course down here in a way that corresponds in some small way to that which was seen in perfection in Christ and which was seen so gloriously also with the apostle Paul.
We see therefore in chapter 6 that the apostle seeks to instruct us in the truth in raising these questions. It is his way of doing things, particularly in the epistles to the Romans and the Corinthians. Instead of announcing the truth in a positive way, he puts various questions so that we are made to reflect and that we should give a response. So he says, “Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death?” Each of us, I suppose, has been baptised. For the most part probably we have been baptised as babies. But the time then comes when we must understand with intelligence and exercise what the faith of our parents did for us.
It is thus that at the beginning of chapter 6, the apostle asks if we have taken the time to consider the bearing of our baptism. You have been baptised to Christ Jesus, he says; put another way, you have been put on Christian ground or your parents have set you there, with the faith that you would place yourselves there in due time. You have been baptised to Christ Jesus, but the form in which you received your baptism was a commitment to death. Whoever is baptised disappeared in the waters. Put another way, we must understand it is a commitment that links us with His death. What does that mean? These are not hollow, meaningless things. These are not mere religious events or ceremonies; these things have meaning. Each of us has made a commitment to the death of Christ. It is truly on the basis of His death that all blessing has come to us, but we must understand that we have a commitment as to His death. If the Lord has been into death, it was for us, that goes without saying. Death had neither right nor power over Him. At a certain moment, it appeared that He submitted to its power, but it is said, “Christ having been raised up from among the dead dies no more: death has dominion over him no more”. For a moment, it had dominion over Him, in the sense that He really died, but it was in view of rising again. All that Christ has passed through was for you and for me. God has expressed in Christ, in the way in which He went even unto death, in burial, then in resurrection, what He had in view for you and for me.
We have therefore to understand that a committal links us to death, the death of Christ. I would like to say to the youngest brother here, as to the youngest sister, Take this into consideration, and ask yourself if you have some understanding of the bearing of your baptism, of the fact that Christ has died for you, to deliver you from your sins and the judgment attaching to them, and much more, to animate you in the appreciation of the way He has taken, with the resolution to take the same way. When God brought His people out of Egypt, it was with the intention to deliver them from it entirely, so that they would nevermore return there. For Egypt is a type of the world, characterised by independence towards God. It is not the world in the basest and grossest features, that is Sodom. It is also not the world in its religious character, that is Babylon. It is the world characterised by independence towards God, living to itself, finding its resources in itself. For God is so jealous of the affections of His creatures that He feels keenly all that would influence us in this sense, and He has intervened by redemption in the death of Christ so that we should be completely delivered, not only from the world as a system, but from all its principles and elements. To put it another way, He desires to deliver us entirely from our tendency to live to ourselves and to be independent of Him. His jealousy and His love are behind it, and it is because He is a God so infinitely blessed that He would become the Object of satisfaction for every one of His creatures. This God has in view to deliver us completely from the world, not just to see us come out reluctantly, that is not at all God’s mind. Once the people had to come out in haste, their loins girt and sandals on their feet, etc. Psalm 105 tells us that they came out with silver and gold, and that there was none weak among them. That is to say, they really came out in victory. How magnificent it is to find a saint on earth completely delivered from the features of the world around them, and from the power of the flesh in them, and able to live for God. This is what God has in view. It is not something inaccessible, dear brethren, it is realisable. This is why we have received life in Christ Jesus by the Spirit, that these things are realisable. It is God’s intention for each of us to have the gain of.
The apostle therefore in chapter 6 would have us understand that “that our old man has been crucified with him”. The Lord has been crucified indeed. It was not for Himself that He was crucified. On the one hand, it was what man did to Him; but on the other hand it is what God has done to man in the flesh. God has taken account of what man was in the flesh, “our old man”, it is said. He has decided judicially that the only thing this man deserved was to be crucified, put to death in a way that expressed God’s holy contempt for this characteristically sinful man. It is said, “our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin”. The world is characterised by sin. Sin is iniquity, it is doing my own will, but sin has no power over a dead person. Let us keep this well in mind: the means to escape the power of the world is to accept that we are dead in the death of Christ. Let us fix our minds in this direction. The first thing required is to orient our minds in the right direction. If this is so, the Spirit of God will help us to move in consequence. It is thus that it is said “our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled”. In other words, the power of sin in its totality, the great principle of acting as we see fit or as the world, the whole principle and its power over us will be annulled by the simple fact that we accept death. It is our right, more than that, it is our obligation, because Christ has taken this way for us; it was not for Him, it was for us. It is therefore an obligation for us, dear brethren. They are not optional things. God has acquired absolute rights over us in redemption, so as to have us entirely for Him. He will soon have us for Himself eternally. He desires us for Himself from now on. At the price of the precious blood of Christ, God has acquired incontestable rights over each one of us in redemption with the intention that we should be completely delivered from the power of sin. God has His way of effecting deliverance, and that is to put an end to the man in death, for as I have emphasised, sin has no power over a dead person. If we keep in mind that we are dead with Christ, nothing in us will respond any more to the attraction of the world. “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ having been raised up from among the dead, dies no more; death has dominion over him no more. For in that he has died, he has died to sin once for all”. In dying, He has left this world, this world of sin. “In that he has died, he has died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God”. It is very important to keep Christ before us as He is and where He is. He lives to God in an absolute sense, His considerations all going to God, and we must hold ourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, not yet in heaven for we are still here on the earth. But what is in view is that we should live to God in Christ Jesus while we are still here.
I ask myself if we have a real appreciation of the glory of this life in Christ Jesus, in which we have received a part. Whoever has received the Spirit of God has received life in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is the Man of God’s good pleasure, the Man of His choice, truly the Man of His purpose. As we go on in this epistle, we will discover that the first man, the man in the flesh, is incorrigible, you can do nothing about it. What God has done is that He has condemned him and put an end to his history in the death of Christ as substitute. It is important to arrive at that, nothing good can proceed from the first man, absolutely nothing. “The mind of the flesh”, it is said, “is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be”. Without redemption and the gift of the Spirit, what a desperate position! But by the gift of the Spirit, God has made us partakers in the life of another Man, and He in whose life we have part by the Spirit is the Man Christ Jesus. Think of Him—a Person of the Deity who has taken the condition of manhood, so that He could bring out for God’s pleasure a humanity of a glorious and morally elevated character, so that the saints, freed of all that attached to them, receive life in Him. What a marvellous thing! Life in Christ Jesus is manifested in the details of the life of the saints. In the measure in which they are kept and formed under the influence of Christ, the life that is in Christ Jesus is expressed practically in them. Thus it is said: “Reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”. It is very important to have our minds in the right direction. It is about a way of thinking, and then as I have said if our minds are well orientated, the Spirit of God will intervene in power to make us able to move according to the truth.
When we come to chapter 8, we find in Paul someone who experienced effectively the power of the things of which we have been seeking to speak. “The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus”, he says, “has set me free from the law of sin and of death”. If I say to myself that I will do what I please, it is clear that I am not delivered from the law of sin, for it is sin precisely. These things are very simple and practical, dear brethren; I would insist on this point for the youngest here and all of us: God desires that our Christianity should be practical. He desires that we should have the victory. He desires that we should be delivered completely from all the forms in which iniquity can work. It is a matter of Egypt, and I have been delivered from Egypt so as to serve God, to serve Him now down here, and later in heaven eternally. You remember that when He brought His people from Egypt, God proposed first of all to bring them out into a land flowing with milk and honey. This was the final objective. But a little later, He said to Moses that when He had brought them out of Egypt, they would serve God in this mountain, the mountain where God spoke with him in the wilderness. Two thoughts therefore belong to our exodus from Egypt: the first that we should serve God now in the wilderness; the second that we should be introduced finally into all that God in love has purposed for us. These are two points that we must always keep before us: first, what must occupy us presently, while we wait for the Lord, that is the service of God down here in the assembly; and later, evidently, we will enter into our heavenly portion when the Lord comes. In waiting in the power of the Spirit, who is the Earnest of our inheritance, we can already have the foretaste of these heavenly things as we know them. Such is the objective of our liberation from Egypt, to serve God in the wilderness, on the one hand, and in heavenly places on the other. Paul says, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”. You ask what is the idea of the law here? It is not about the Mosaic law, that is clear. The idea is that of a principal regulator. Each of us regulates his life after some principle. I could say for example, I am free to do what pleases me. In saying this, I am putting forward a principle. It is a bad principle, but a principle after which I could regulate my life. The idea is therefore that each of us is governed by a principle. God regulates the universe on the principle of laws, the laws of the universe. That gives the idea of a principal regulator that regulates our lives. The apostle tells us that what regulated his own was “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”. That is to say, his affections were towards another Man and regulated by the impulses that emanated from Him. It is something very simple and very blessed. You will remember what it is said of Jesus in the last verse of the gospel of John. The apostle tells us that if all the things that Jesus had done were written one by one, “I suppose that not even the world itself would contain the books written”. Well, these things are conserved in the saints, those who move under the influence of Christ, who know something of the reality of life in Christ Jesus, and who draw their character from Jesus. The things that Jesus did are reproduced in detail in the life of the saints. They are all kept, and are going to come to light in the holy city in the day to come. It is there that they are going to be found preserved and so to say written, the things that Jesus did, but it is now that they are manifested in the life of the saints who are regulated by this law, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”, the apostle says, “has set me free from the law of sin and of death”. What do we know of this, the liberty and the power of true salvation, “the God’s power to salvation to every one who believes”? It is a good exercise to have before us. How are we going to be qualified to have part in a vessel that is invulnerable? For the Lord says, “my assembly, and hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. How are we going to form this vessel if we do not know in some measure at least what it is to be made completely superior to the influences of sin, of the flesh and of the world. It is a matter of being built up in what is invulnerable, and the secret of it is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”.
Then he continues to speak about the Spirit; the Spirit is the great secret of power so that Christianity, as I have said, should be something practical. It is not a matter of the body of doctrine that we have been able to acquire and of which we can speak. It is a matter of power and of life. It is what marked Paul and it is very important that this is what marks us too. The secret is in the Spirit. The way in which the Spirit of God expresses Himself in Romans 8 is moving and extremely pointed at the same time. He speaks of the mind of the flesh which is enmity against God, which is not subject to the law of God for neither indeed can it be, so that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. How categorical all this is! How essential redemption therefore is! God has redeemed us and given us life in Christ Jesus by the Spirit so that in this very scene where we have pursued our own will, we should now be for the will and pleasure of God. This can only be in the measure in which the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is known by us and characterises our walk down here.
The apostle therefore continues, “ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit dwells in you”. It is interesting to study the different titles by which the Spirit is mentioned in this chapter: first, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; now God’s Spirit, which suggests His divine power. “Ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you”. What a touching thought, that God Himself in the Spirit should be concerned to set the believer completely free from the incapacity that attached to him in the flesh! The flesh cannot produce any fruit for the pleasure of God. But the Spirit of God has intervened, God Himself in the Person of the Spirit, so that we should not be from now on characterised by the flesh but by the Spirit: “ye are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you, but if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ”, that is to say, is not marked by this character, “he is not of him”. How this tests us! The Spirit has this character. He is the Spirit of God; and He also has this character of the Spirit of Christ, so that the order of manhood which pleases God and which is seen perfectly in Jesus should be reproduced in power in the spirit and life of His own down here. How great these things are, dear brethren, and how essential they are if we want to find our place in Christ’s assembly, which He can identify as belonging to Himself, and of which He says “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. Think of the assembly down here and hades’ gates continually active against it! How vigilant we should be if we realised therefore that Satan is constantly busy plotting some plan to try to interfere with what belongs to the Lord here, which He calls “my assembly”. If he succeeds through any of us, the evil will spread. You remember how David speaks in Psalm 51 when he had been led to judge himself as to his terrible sin in the matter of the wife of Urijah the Hittite. He come to this conclusion that God wants “truth in the inward parts”. He had tried long enough before to keep up appearances. Having committed a terrible sin, he had arranged to keep it secret for a while, going on in appearance as if all was well. That is what the flesh is capable of, even in a believer. But then in the presence of God he can come to say “Thou wilt have truth in the inward parts”. That is what we must ensure, truth in the inward man, to allow the truth to probe us internally. Thus we will not tolerate anything inwardly that is incompatible with the truth.
When David arrives at this point, this prayer can be addressed to God at the end of the Psalm: “Build the walls of Jerusalem”. Why introduce this in a personal psalm, a psalm with features of a personal fault and all the exercises that have flowed from it? He understands that in sinning he had allowed the enemy to get in. The wall is thus partially undermined. By his own fault, the wall, which had to preserve all that was due to God in Jerusalem, was undermined; he was responsible, and others were to be affected. Doubtless Joab knew it all, and was influence in his prejudice by David’s sin. And David is marked by a true contrition: “Build the walls of Jerusalem”, he says to God. Never lose this view, dear brethren. We belong to the assembly of Christ down here, and hades’ gates constantly conspire against it, the enemy seeking where by means of whom he will he would be able to get in an introduce something that would serve to undermine the wall. It belongs to each of us to ensure that we appropriate the power of the glad tidings on a real appreciation of all that the Spirit is ready to be to us. Thus we will not open the gates to the enemy in one way or another, nor will we give him access by which he would be able to undermine the walls of Jerusalem. So Paul says, “if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of him, but if Christ be in you, the body is indeed dead on account of sin”. This is how we must hold our bodies. We have to accept death. The body is only a means of expression. Satan would make it an agent of sin; the Spirit would make it the expression of the will and pleasure of God. Which is the better of the two? Which is marked by more dignity? Which is the more attractive to the believer: to have his body to express his own will, or to possess it as a vessel for the expression of the will of God and to live for His pleasure? Such is the thought. I repeat that if we are not regulated by these things, dear brethren, we are going to allow conditions which the enemy will use to infiltrate himself and gain a victory over the assembly.
The apostle goes on: “If Christ be in you, the body is dead on account of sin, but the Spirit life on account of righteousness”. The Spirit is now presented in another aspect: “the Spirit of him who has raised up Jesus from among the dead”. God has raised Jesus from among the dead, it was a selective resurrection. How many millions of persons lay in death when Jesus was found there, and among them great men who had featured in the world’s history. Julius Cæsar, Alexander the Great, many great philosophers, millions were there including the great men of history. God then intervened and raised Jesus from among the dead, leaving all the others in death. What is the significance of this for us? This signifies that Jesus is the Man of God’s good pleasure, that God had no consideration for what man considers great, or important, or intelligent. The only Man in whom He is complacent and to whom He has given the highest place in the universe is Jesus, whom He has raised from among the dead. Now, the Spirit of Him who has operated thus is in us. That is to say, He would lead us in conformity with that. “If the Spirit of him who has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in you, he who has raised up Jesus from among the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies also, on account of the Spirit which dwells in you”. The Spirit of God dwells in us and will be there until the end. The Spirit of Him who exalts Jesus, and no other, this Spirit dwells in us for ever. He would lead us into correspondence with God’s thoughts as to Christ. And as He does so, there is in us what is worthy of resurrection. What was in Jesus as Man down here called for resurrection, and God so to speak answered and raised Him from among the dead. If the Spirit of Him who has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in us, He who has raised up Christ from among the dead shall quicken our mortal bodies also on account of the Spirit which dwells in us. It is not a matter here of resurrection but of quickening the saints who will be alive when the Lord comes, of quickening their mortal bodies, not their dead bodies, but their mortal bodies. How touching it is that the Spirit remains with us until the end! None of us knows what the condition of our bodies may become before the Lord takes them. We could become very frail; we could even lose our faculties; we do not know what might come. It is a humiliating thing to look forward to, but it is so. However, we know that the Spirit will remain with us until the end. It is extremely touching to think that the Spirit of God is just content with the conditions which the saints in their frailty can provide, every believer having the Spirit, however frail his mortal condition is a temple of the Holy Spirit. These things are wonderful, dear brethren, when one begins to consider them. One has the impression that Christianity is a victorious system, but we only have the gain of it in the measure in which we are in the benefit of the presence and service of the Spirit.
Now, the apostle brings these things to a conclusion. “So then, brethren”, he says, “we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to flesh”. Let us consider things as God sees them. Why do we recognise some obligation that is according to the flesh? Let us orient our minds in the right direction. “We are debtors”, he says, “not to the flesh, to live according to flesh, for if ye live according to flesh ye are about to die”. Why would I pursue what is going to lead to moral death, render me useless to God, useless to the saints, and miserable as to my personal experience? Why so? We are not in the least obligated to the flesh to serve it. “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. We are coming now to liberty and dignity. Led by the Spirit of God, you are conscious of being sons. You are conscious of your liberty, liberty with God and liberty among the saints. You are conscious also of your dignity. No one has so much dignity, I suppose, as one who is in the power of the Spirit of God. Look at Jacob at the end of his career. He is brought into the presence of Pharaoh, the greatest potentate of the epoch. Jacob, a lone pilgrim, might we say, is brought into his presence and blesses him. We know from the Scriptures that the lesser is blessed by him who is more excellent, and here is Jacob, typically with the benefit of the unction, greater than the greatest man of his times. He blesses Pharaoh who asks him his age; he replies humbly, then blesses Pharaoh again, and goes out of his presence. What dignity! “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”.
Then it is said, “For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father”. It is precious to think that the same expression used by the Lord in His relations with His Father, this profound expression, “Abba Father”, should be found now on the lips of saints in the power of the Spirit. It is what God can do; those who once were characterised by the lusts of the flesh can now with liberty towards God, give expression to feelings of affection towards God, feelings of the same kind as those which filled the heart of the Lord Jesus Himself. Then again, “The Spirit himself”, it is said, “bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God”. We are not only sons but children: “and if children, heirs also”. What glory opens to our view, dear brethren, when the Spirit has His place. It is truly adoption; we know not only the terms, but we taste the power and reality of it. Thus the Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God, born of God, objects of His care down here in the testimony. “And if children, heirs also”. Think of this favour, to be heirs of God. By divine decree, Christ is heir of all things, and we are his joint-heirs. All that Christ is going to take possession of as Man we will share with Him. Such is divine grace, and the Spirit of God bears us witness of it. Whoever has the feeling, even very weak, of being heir of God and joint-heir with Christ, will not desire to be aggrandised in this world, it is clear. He will not want to be enriched, or to acquire a position among men. He will desire to be here for the will of God, content to use his days simply for the will of God, accepting His mercies as being necessary to him for this life. But his life has another object, for he is redeemed. It is stamped with the liberty and dignity of a son, conscious that he is child of God and joint-heir with Christ.
Then the Spirit adds, and it is very significant: “If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him”. In other words, suffering is the order of the day, not easy times, but suffering. It is part of God’s ways. The world has its day, and there are those who seem to prosper in this world. Asaph tells us in Psalm 73 that he had been momentarily impressed by the apparent prosperity of the wicked who, it seemed, had no pain. But when he went into the sanctuaries, he saw things differently. This was part of God’s ways, that those who are going to be glorified in the day to come, sharing the glory of Christ, suffer down here. So the apostle says, “If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him”.
That is all I can say, dear brethren. My exercise is that we should know the reality of salvation. God desires that we should be victorious. It is not a vanquished people that the Lord is going to take up, but a victorious people. What is proposed to us in chapter 8 of Romans is that we should be victorious over sin in the flesh, and victorious also in our circumstances. It is in the Spirit that the power resides to be victorious over sin in the flesh, and it is in our knowledge of the love of Christ and the love of God that the power resides to be victorious in our circumstances. These three things combine, what the Spirit is to us for the one part, and what the love of Christ and the love of God are for us on the other, making the believer an entirely victorious person. It is essential that we realise it in some little way, for the Lord’s intention for His assembly is that hades’ gates should not prevail against it. The glad tidings of God is have in view to build up in each of us what is victorious in character, with the oldest and the youngest: may the young ones begin early to pursue the truth and to see God’s thought for them, as for us all. He desires that we should be victorious down here for His pleasure and for His testimony.
WESTFIELD
17th February 1959
From Paroles d’Édification Mutuelle
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