NEWNESS OF SPIRIT
[p. 155] NEWNESS OF SPIRIT
Romans 6:4; Romans 7:6; Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:23,24
I have in mind to speak about the element of newness. If Christianity as introduced into this world, is marked by anything it is by newness, and it occurred to me that the epistle to the Romans serves to unfold how this element comes about, and develops in the believer from the very beginning of his spiritual history. Other features run parallel in this epistle such as holiness, but I desire to speak about newness — first, newness of life, then newness of spirit, and then newness in the renewal of the mind.
One is reminded of the Old Testament facts, ever available in ministry to amplify in detail what is presented doctrinally in the New Testament, and so as early as the first chapter of the Bible we have this feature of newness of life. On the third day life appeared — that is vegetable life. On the fifth day animal life appeared, but on the third day we have what I think may be regarded as corresponding with this sixth chapter of Romans. The earth emerged on that day from the waters of death. How long it had lain there is not disclosed, but the earth, the dry land, appeared on that day. It was for the moment bare, but presently there was life. It was to bring forth; life was in the thing, so it yielded the grass, the herb, and the tree. You can understand what freshness there was. There was not only life as there is today, but life in newness, and that is what God intends spiritually in us as Christians — that there should be this newness, not only that we should be alive but that there should be newness. So we read “That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father”, so we as “buried with him by baptism into death” should emerge from the waters of death [p. 156] that we might walk in newness of life. You can understand, as I said, how delightfully fresh everything was on that fair day of creation. True enough, men were not there to enjoy it, but God was there, and primarily everything is for God: “All things were created by him and for him” Colossians 1:16 and “For thy pleasure”, referring to the very creation itself, it says “they are and were created”, Revelation 4:11. So that God had freshness on that day; and it was good. It must have been delightfully fresh as the earth, emerging from its long submerged condition in the waters of death began to yield. The earth brought forth grass, the surface was covered with it, and every blade of it was known to God. The earth thus yielded grass, for God had given the earth the element of life. God gives it a body, we are told; even today every farmer knows that; as he puts his seed into the ground, what comes up is not that seed, but the body which God pleases to give it. God is operating with the very seed, and He gives it a body as it pleases Him. And so the earth yielded its grass, its herbs, and its trees, and all in perfect freshness. It was indeed a newness of life. It was the divine thought that if the earth were brought out of the waters of death there should be something for God, and so there was the evidence of life, and life indeed, dear brethren, to which the Lord likens the product of His own death, for the vegetable figure is used, wonderful to say, in regard of His own blessed body. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit”. John 12:24. The “much fruit” as it comes up is marked by newness in every item of it; the freshness of that life, that life that shone here in Himself alone, is developed in all the much fruit. And so, as I said, on that third day there was under the eye of God, who knew everything from the beginning to the end, what should ultimately spring up for His pleasure [p. 157] as the product of the death of His Son — the death of Christ.
And again, as the earth was once more submerged at the flood, we can understand what freshness there was as Noah and his sons and those creatures with him in the ark came forth. What freshness there was in the cleansed earth, cleansed of its pollution, when a new world began and it was blessed of God! There was the burnt-offering, the sweet savour in which God rested. It was new indeed. There had been no savour of rest spoken of before, indeed it is in the offering of Noah that you have it, and this order of things, God says, will remain. “While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest” — the same idea — “seed-time and harvest, ... shall not cease”. Genesis 8:22.
Again, as Israel in crossing the Red Sea emerged from the waters of death, you have the same thing. “I remember thee”, He says, “the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the Wilderness”. Jeremiah 2:2. He does not refer to what they were in Egypt, but to what they were as emerging from the waters of death. “I remember for thee”. Doubtless they had forgotten, as many of us do as we grow old. We lose the sense of newness of life; we settle down in external things without the germ of life operating, just like Ephraim; grey hairs were here and there upon him, and he did not know it. That is not newness of life; it is scarcely life at all. Grey hairs would denote death and decay. God would have life.
So in the book of Hosea He says, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him” Hosea 11:1; that is when there was freshness — the freshness in which they sang on the banks of the Red Sea. How delightful that song was to God! It was the song of children, as it were, in the freshness of their enjoyment of the deliverance that had come to them from Jehovah. “When Israel was a child, then I loved him” Hosea 11:1; but he had,
[p. 158] grown old; grey hairs had appeared. Ephraim was joined to his idols in his old age, and so God reverts to the beginning when things were fresh. It was when Israel was a child that He loved him. So in the Old Testament we have these great principles, which are set out in Romans, illustrated and set before us — that freshness of life that God looks for in us as having been baptised. “So many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into his death”. Romans 6:3. For that is the point. It is life out of death: “That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life”. You see how great a thing is connected with your every-day walk — the resurrection of Christ by the glory of the Father — an expression, I think, found only here. See how great a thing is connected with the walk of the believer — the very earliest movements of the believer in this world as baptised! The Son of God was in death in these very waters. He went down into death; the waters went over His soul. “All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me”. Psalm 42:7. It was death in its reality. The waters indeed were frozen according to the figure in Job: “The breadth of the waters is straitened”, Job 37:10. How real was His death, and He was taken out of that by the glory of the Father! That means that the Father’s affections were involved in taking His Son out of that state. He took Him out of it, and the answer to that here is that the believer, as baptised, is walking in newness of life. It is not a question here exactly of eternal life, of the purpose of God, but of a new thing seen in me here in this world where I have been; in the very spot where I served sin, now I am marked by newness of life. I am living, but all the features of my life are new. It is not a question of what they are like as related to a pattern, but what is there is new. I am different. I am different. There is freshness about me; there [p. 159] is an evidence of vitality I am not what I used to be. My conduct as a husband is different; my conduct as a wife is different; my conduct as a child is different; my conduct as a master, as a servant, as a neighbour, is different. There is a new element altogether in me, and that works out in all my relations, for it is a question in Romans of what I am where I used to be, what I am as a Christian where I used to be as an unbeliever — that is the point. So things are new. Where there were corruption, rebellion, and lawlessness, there is now in subjection the preservation of what is right, true, and good. There is subjection to God, there is consideration for others, there is care for others, I have lost my selfishness: in a word, I am different. The element of life is operative; I am come out of death, and God delights in that. It is new. It is such a life as corresponds, in the principle of it, with what marked the Lord Jesus under the eye of God in this world.
Now, I press this, because many of us retain the old ways and habits. Whilst professing faith in Christ and accepting baptism, there is not that freshness, and even if we begin with it, we soon begin to develop grey hairs — marks of decay — instead of retaining the vigour of life. The Lord is described as having his hair black as a raven — there is the energy of life. I retain that; not only do I begin with it, but I retain it. The divine idea is that things are new, are fresh in me, as we see in the heavenly city; she is as fresh and new at the end of the thousand years as she was at the beginning — newness of life. The next thing in this epistle is newness of spirit. Chapter 6 has its bearing on me in every relation. It refers to me as in my body where I used to be; there is a complete change in me, and it is expressed in my body. Hence the emphasis is laid on our members in chapter 6. But now in chapter 7 it is a question of serving, and when we come to service [p. 160] it is priestly. There was serving in the oldness of the letter in Judaism, and now I believe that the profession around us has returned to it also, for there is but a semblance of response to God in His commandments. The Scriptures are appointed to be read in churches. Thank God for that! That is what is put in the Authorised Version. One does not deprecate that, for if it is appointed to be read in churches, the reading of it will possibly help someone. Possibly most of us got light in that way, so we need not deprecate the appointment to be read in churches. But while there is the evidence of the outward recognition of God in the Bible being read in these systems, and while they are accustomed to the semblance of the Lord’s supper and baptism, and other things, yet alongside of these you have what belongs to the old dispensation. They have, for instance, the idea of the house of God as a material building. Now all these, beloved, are the oldness of the letter, and not only is the letter old, but it kills. None of these things conduce to life. If God quickens, it is in spite of them. So He works as He did in Israel. God is God and He does work. Many of us, doubtless, got light in these relations, but nevertheless the principle of the whole thing, to say the least, is the letter. One might say much more than that, but what I have spoken of is only to illustrate what the oldness of the letter means. Now chapter 7 is that I am to serve in newness of spirit; in other words, Christianity is wholly new as a system of service, as that in which life here is expressed publicly — it is a new kind of life. A man is wholly changed, he is different in all his relations. His very countenance is altered, and that is to be continued. He is to serve God, and the point in chapter 7 is that the service is to be new in spirit, and it is this which makes those who seek to serve God in this newness of spirit an object of ridicule by the religious people in this world. We have to [p. 161] expect that. If you pursue this newness of spirit in your service to God, you are sure to be ridiculed; it is not in agreement with what is accepted religiously in this world. The world is an old affair, a very old affair. Its religion began with Cain; that is where it began. It began with Cain, was elaborated then with music, and all sorts of things; this bespeaks the oldness of the thing. There is nothing new in an organ in a church; it is as old as Cain. You say, David used these things. Yes, he did; but they were types; but if you use them because David used them, you are using them in the oldness of the letter, and the letter kills. These things kill men spiritually; there is nothing new in them. There is nothing new in a material building being called a church or the house of God; there is nothing new in a choir or a precentor; these things are old; they belong to the Cain system. The temple built by Solomon was a magnificent structure; there has never been a religious structure like it, but to assume to have it today is the “oldness of the letter”. God will not put up with these old things; they are not suitable to Him, for He is the living God. God is a Spirit, and has to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. So Romans teaches us that we are to serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. You may say, We have not any of these old things; but what about newness of spirit? We might become dry bones with right externals. The spirit is the inner thing, and this newness of spirit is to pervade every meeting of the saints. “I will sing with the spirit”, it says, “and I will sing with the understanding also”. 1 Corinthians 14:15. There must be the two things. The understanding governs you in what is according to God; it is specially the priestly side; the spirit thus viewed is also priestly; it is a very essential thing. I may, have intelligence but I must have the spirit also. The point is newness. The spirit in which you serve [p. 162] is different from what belonged to the Old Testament system and different from all imitations of it. All religious systems characterised by what is visible are in principle the same as Judaism, but what is here is that in your service the spirit is to be different from everything that claims to be the service of God. There is newness of spirit in it.
Now it is most important for young believers to take account of that. It may be said, Romans is an elementary epistle, but it lays the basis of everything in your soul; so that, if you take part in the assembly, and you know Romans, you will do it in a new way, you will serve in newness of spirit. And thus it is that things are kept fresh and new always in our meetings. If things are new and fresh in my everyday circumstances as in chapter 6, so in chapter 7 in the assembly, however little part I take, it is in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
Now I come to chapter 12, which speaks about the mind. We are now arrived at the exhortations based on the doctrines of this epistle, hence a measure of advance. So the apostle brings in the idea of transformation. “Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”. I believe many, if not most young believers, are hindered by the books they read. They are obliged to read books at school for educational purposes, and they come to like them. They contain lies, but they have to read them, and when the obligation ceases the liking remains; the taste remains. You have been drinking the old wine, and as you taste the new you straightway say, ‘The old is better’. You may say I have enjoyed the morning meeting, and I have been to the reading, and I liked it, but you go back to reading your novel in your bedroom, it may be. You enjoy the old. “No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, The old is better”. Luke 5:39. And so in that way young people are [p. 163] hindered because of their minds. They are enjoying mentally those wretched things that ungodly men (some of them of the worst repute) have written. It is not for me to traduce those notable men in history but take any of them that you please, what kind of men were they? And take the things generally that they wrote! Where is Your mind? It is not that you are not a believer. You have confessed the Lord, but your mind is not renewed, you are not different from your companions. It is possible that you go to the picture-shows, or even to the theatre, so that your mind is in the same channel as the ungodly. You are conformed to this world, and so the exhortation is, “Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”; that, is to say, the element of newness is to come into the mind, so that instead of imbibing those filthy things you begin to appreciate the things of God, the holy Scriptures. The Bible becomes attractive, and the ministry of the Spirit becomes attractive, and you begin to acquire a spiritual taste. “As new-born babes, desire earnestly the pure mental milk of the word, that by it ye may grow up to salvation”. 1 Peter 2:2. Now you will begin to develop a little, and the measure in which you grow by the renewed mind, in that measure you are transformed — not yet conformed, but transformed, which is more a negative thought. It means that you are different from the world, for Romans does not go very far, but you are different. You have a new set of tastes, a new set of books in your library, for books are largely what the mind feeds on. You listen to new things, and enjoy new things now. You are transformed, and you are proving, by the transformation, that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You begin by accepting the will of God, but now you are proving it. How many of you young people are proving it? Many of us older ones have proved it; and you have [p. 164] to prove it, and when you have proved it, it is a fixed thing with you. Then you go on to Ephesians, and you see that the will of God is going through; every part of it is to be given effect to for His good pleasure, and nothing can stand in the way of it. All will be effectuated according to the good pleasure of His will, the counsel of His own will; and He has made known to us the mystery of His will — to head up all things in Christ. You are proving it in the things you are listening to and practising. Thus it is first in my body, and circumstances, and relations, then in the service of God, and finally in my growth that the new element continues; the renewing of the mind is one of the most interesting things one can speak about. But when you come to Ephesians, you have the renewing of the spirit of your mind. Now there is an advance; but these things are only intelligible as you know them in your soul. How can I define what the spirit of my mind is? I can name it. But it is for each one to determine what the spirit of his mind is. As the spirit of the mind is renewed in me, no matter what is presented to me, if it is not of God, I know instinctively that it is wrong. I have an instinct in my mind, the very spirit of my mind is against that; I know it to be against what is of God. On the other hand, when something is presented to me that is of the Spirit of God, I feel in the spirit of my mind an answer to that; and I say it is with that I am going on, and so I am renewed in the spirit of my mind.
Then in Ephesians Paul goes on to speak of the new man. He says, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness”. Now I come in this process of newness to the new man, and there is only one. What I [p. 165] have been speaking of hitherto deals with us severally; now we have come to something that deals with all saints, viewed collectively, and I ask is there such a thing in this world at the present time that you know of as “the new man”? You can only take in the idea as you take in all the saints. There is only one new man spoken of, and that includes all the saints. It looks at them as the work of God. The new man is a creation — created in righteousness and true holiness. Now we have something that is new in which we all have part, and which applies to us all. We are a creation in truthful righteousness and holiness. Think of what a powerful testimony that is in this world! It is not simply the practice of it, but the creation itself of the new man. Take the first of Genesis, and there you see how bit by bit it pleased God to operate; and behold the result was very good. But think of this creation — “the new man” — men and women all over the world, the subjects of the creational power of God, and that this has resulted in truthful righteousness and holiness. What a powerful testimony that is! It is a creation which remains, which stands.
And now what I would just like to notice is the connection of this with lying. Having stated the truth the apostle says, Now don’t you tell lies to one another. How very humiliating to say this to Christians! even Ephesian Christians, perhaps the most advanced in these days. He says, “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour”. Ephesians 4:25. Why should that be said to Christians? Well, it is appalling the amount of lies that pass current amongst us, and they gather as they go; they do not diminish. It is not that believers are liars; one would shrink from such a thought. The Cretans were always liars; but that was what they were naturally. Christians are not liars, yet here is the command, “Wherefore putting away lying”.
[p. 166] You have put off the old man, and that is what marks him: he “is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts” Ephesians 4:22; so let us see to it that the lie is detected and judged. “In the mouth of two or three witnesses that every word be established”. 2 Corinthians 13:1. If things are expressed that involve persons let them be accredited; let them be attested by competent witnesses; and we have abundant instruction what to do if they are attested. But if not attested, they have to be given up. How easily one tells a lie to cover something. It is just a mark of the old man, and so the new man is created in righteousness and true holiness. To the Colossians he says, “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds”. Colossians 3:9. And to the Ephesians, “Having put off falsehood, speak truth every one with his neighbour”. Ephesians 4:25. It is a question there of those who live near to us. Tell them the truth. I know how this comes home to every one of us; how easily we exaggerate and falsify things, and convey wrong impressions, but note this, that the new man is created in truthful righteousness and holiness, and it is in that connection that we are told not to tell lies to one another. In what I have been saying I have endeavoured to bring forward the importance of what is new, and how it marks the believer from his spiritual beginnings, also how Romans lays the basis, as I may say, for the New Jerusalem that descends from God out of heaven. We are to form part of that city, and we are being formed for it now, and the elements of it are set forth in Romans, and the youngest believer should see to it that those elements are operative in him in newness of life, in newness of spirit, and in the renewing of the mind, keeping in view also the further thought, that the new man is created in righteousness and holiness of truth.