THE RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
[p. 197] THE RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Titus 3: 5; Romans 12: 1, 2; 2 Corinthians 4: 16
We have considered the way in which the one God and the one Lord are to be held in affection by the saints, and we may now consider the place of the Spirit in connection with renewing, which is a very important part of the truth. In each of the scriptures read renewing is the result of the presence of the Spirit: we could not have a renewed mind apart from the Spirit; the inward man could not be renewed apart from the Spirit.
It is important to see that the washing of regeneration (Titus 3) comes before the renewing of the Spirit. If I were to have a scripture to illustrate that it would be Acts 2: 37, 38; we find there the people were pricked to the heart when they heard that the crucified Jesus was made Lord and Christ; and they said, “What shall we do?” They realised that they were all wrong, and not only so, but that they were surrounded by a people that were all wrong. So Peter says, “Repent, and be baptised every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”, and in verse 40 he says, “Save yourselves from this untoward generation”. I should connect the washing of regeneration with being saved from this perverse generation: regeneration is a new order of things in which to live. I think baptism in its true moral import is the washing of regeneration. In the midst of a baptised profession we have all to be exercised to learn what it really means; and we have to learn its moral import long after we are baptised. The reason I dwell on this is that I think the renewal of the Spirit does not operate in the old condition at all but in a new condition, in that new place into which the kindness and love of God has brought us, and in which we find the salvation which the love to man of our Saviour God has provided. We find it in an order of things quite apart from the perverse and darkened generation found in this world. No doubt the secret why the renewing of the Holy Spirit is not a greater reality to people is that they are not in the good of the washing of regeneration.
We are surrounded by a people who do not want Christ and God’s salvation, and the washing of regeneration moves us out of association with these people and into association [p. 198] with people who do want Christ and take pleasure in Christ, and to whom divine Persons are objects of affection. There is a darkened generation around us that does not want divine Persons; they have no appreciation of the Father or of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is something like the way people were saved in the ark: it says they were saved through water. If we had written about it we would have said, ‘saved in the ark’, but Scripture says, “saved through water”. I have no doubt the water came between them and the world of ungodly sinners: there was an immense depth of water between them and the ungodly sinners who had come under judgment, and they could enjoy the place that was prepared for salvation. Noah prepared an ark for the salvation of his house.
At the end of Acts 2 we read: “they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers”. These were the preservative conditions which Christ had established for the saving of His house, conditions in which everything of God could be preserved in the face of what is adverse. It is important, because if we want to enjoy everything involved in the renewing of the Spirit we must be in the place and conditions where that renewing can operate. It does not operate in the world; a worldly Christian does not know anything about it. It is a great thing when it becomes a comfort to us that God has put the death of Christ between us and the world. Titus looks at it on the divine side, the way the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God has appeared — that is the way God saves man. He knows there is no other way but by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Many souls know what it is to be convicted of sin personally, but it is a very important matter to be convicted that the whole system in which we live is wrong. Isaiah says, “Woe is me! ... I am a man of unclean lips” — that is half the exercise; the other half is, “I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips”. There is not true repentance in its full sense until people judge the whole condition of the world about them: it is all wrong because it does not give Christ His place. It is a wonderful action of God’s grace that He proposes to men to be baptised, that is, in figure to put the death of Christ between them and the world. No one would do that unless he had judged the state of the world, that the world is all wrong [p. 199] because it has rejected Christ; it does not want Him, but God has made Him Lord and Christ, in heaven. We do not understand salvation or the kindness of God towards men if we do not see that. God has not only come out to save me from sins and judgment and hell, but to save me from a condition of things that gives Him and Christ no place. He wants to bring us to a place where we can get the whole gain of the renewing of the Holy Spirit. A person who is not in separation from the world cannot know the renewing of the Holy Spirit: no one knows it until he sees how God has put the death of Christ between him and the world. The renewing of the Holy Spirit is the positive side of salvation: the washing of regeneration is the negative side of it. It is necessary to come to a change of ground in order to see how this renewing can be experienced and known, and then we shall know what the salvation of God really is.
It is a remarkable word, “renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour”. There is no thought of scanty supply, it is poured on us richly. We need to consider Jesus Christ our Saviour more as the Giver of the Spirit. We think so much of the person who receives the Spirit, but we should think more of the Person who gives the Spirit: it is “through Jesus Christ our Saviour” — through Him God can pour out richly. It is the special distinction of Jesus Christ the Saviour. He is introduced at the beginning of each gospel as the One who baptises with the Holy Spirit. He is able to take His people and immerse them in the Holy Spirit. It is the thought of being brought out of the world, out of the flesh and the old condition, and immersed in the Spirit. The same thought is taken up in 1 Corinthians 12 where it speaks of being baptised into one body. There is a place and a suited condition for this renewal to operate: we must have the renewing of the Spirit to get the positive character of salvation. We are saved in the power of that blessed renewing: we begin to move in an entirely different way; the Holy Spirit begins to be the impulse. The result of the renewing of the Spirit is that we have a people suited to inherit the whole of whatever God has proposed — here it is eternal life.
The renewing of the Spirit is characteristic. It is supposed that in the washing of regeneration we have done with the world: we do not contemplate the thought of going back;
[p. 200] if we did we should go back to the place where there is no room for Christ. Divine Persons are before us in the one God and one Lord, and there is that which corresponds with them in the renewing of the Holy Spirit. In the power of the renewing we go on. There is a complete freedom from the things mentioned in verse 3. We see there how the unrenewed man moves, but the renewed man moves in the energy of good. Man after the flesh always moves under the influence of evil, but man under the power of the renewing of the Holy Spirit moves under the influence of God, on the line of kindness and love to man. One longs to know more of it. How little we know what it is to move in the renewing which is of the Spirit!
We see in Acts 2 what answers to the ark, the conditions Christ has prepared for the saving of His house, and all is carried out in the power of the renewing of the Spirit. It is as we move on with the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and the breaking of bread and prayer, that we are preserved in freedom from all the evil in the world. There is a place where the renewing of the Spirit can operate; and there are new affections, desires, delights — all in the power of the Spirit. God has poured it out richly: He does not intend it to be scanty or meagre! That is the divine side, and it is through Jesus Christ our Saviour — that is the measure of His ability to pour out the Holy Spirit. In the gospel we have the greatness of things according to God: the pouring out richly of the Spirit; the place of children; sonship; the inheritance; and all according to the divine thought.
Now in Romans 12 the renewing of the mind is before us. It is important that the minds of the saints should be renewed as well as their affections. There is evidently an action that goes on subsequently to the renewal of the Spirit: the renewing of the mind gives power for transformation, for it speaks of being “transformed by the renewing of your mind”. It is the same word that is used of the Lord on the mount: “He was transfigured before them”. It is a complete change. If the renewing of the mind is not followed up, there is a lack of transformation.
The mind is presented in the epistle to the Romans in three different ways. In chapter 1 we have the reprobate mind: they did not think good to have God in their knowledge, so He gave them up to a reprobate mind, void of moral discernment,
[p. 201] to do unseemly things. The state of the reprobate mind leads to doing unseemly things, and the state of the renewed mind leads to doing seemly things. I do not think we do anything right apart from a right condition of mind, a renewed mind.
Then we get another mind in Romans 7: we might speak of it as an exercised mind, not a renewed mind, because there is no power to effect transformation. It is the principle of a man’s mind; it speaks (verse 23) of the law of his mind. That is, the fixed principle in his mind was a desire to do what was right and pleasing to God, but there was no transforming power, so he could not be the good man he would like to be. It is a great change from a reprobate mind, but it is only an exercised mind; the man is still in bondage.
When we come to the renewed mind in chapter 12, it is a mind able to effect transformation, so that a man can come out openly and publicly as transfigured. It would result in entire absence of conformity to the world; we should be in conformity to the world that is coming presently. A Christian, as having his mind renewed, would be transformed, he would move through this world as a man of the world to come. I have often thought, What did they think in Jerusalem after the Lord’s resurrection when the bodies of the saints arose and went about the city? What a sight! There should be something similar in the way the saints move about now: their thoughts and discernments are quite different from those of the people of this world, and this is the result of the one God and one Lord having their place in our affections. Men in the heathen world did not think it good to have God in their knowledge, and the result was a reprobate mind. The saints think it good to have God in their knowledge; it is their chief joy, and the result is a renewed mind. Their thoughts and discernments all become new, and they are outwardly transformed. That is the only way to produce an unworldly people — not by dressing them up from outside. There is always a tendency to take colour from this world, but we are to take colour from the world to come.
A transfigured person moves on in the will of God and proves it is good and perfect and acceptable, and is happy. We never prove how good the will of God is till we do it at some personal cost. When it is a question of doing the will of God it always costs: there is a sacrificial element about it,
[p. 202] and the greater the cost, the more we prove how good and perfect and acceptable the will of God is. If we want spiritual liberty there must be natural restraint. We are to be for God, for His pleasure, and we find what a joy and blessedness there is in the delight of God to have us for Himself. We might offer our money or our possessions, but that is not the thought here; it is to be the whole vessel. The body is to be a living sacrifice; it is a body in which the renewing of the Spirit has operated, and also the renewing of the mind, and now there is a vessel which can be dedicated for the pleasure of God in a priestly way. The body is not now looked at as dead to sin, but as living, as energised by the Spirit, and a renewed mind operating in the body, bringing about transformation.
This brings us to our third scripture. We see the man in his mortal condition here; the treasure is in an earthen vessel. Paul had been opening out the blessedness of new covenant ministry, and speaking of the glory of God imaged in a Man — the one God and the one Lord, and then he speaks of this treasure being in an earthen vessel. It is a dedicated vessel, dedicated to the service of love, and it perishes in the service of love. “Always bearing about ... the dying of Jesus” — what does it mean? Not in mind or in spirit, but always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, Paul always had in his body the evidence that he was engaged in the service of love. Look at the wounds and stripes on his body! We see the same love coming out in the life of Jesus and it was fully expressed in His dying — that was the supreme expression of the service of love. The apostle Paul is on that line, bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus. It is not a man getting old and his body wearing out in a natural way, but his outward man perishes in the service of love: the body is held as a dedicated vessel for the service of God. It is a most blessed compensation for the wear and tear of the service of love that the inward man is to be renewed day by day. We are to get our links that are eternal with new creation, to get strengthened and renewed in the power of the Spirit every day. We all feel that our links with what is eternal are not so powerful or so real as we would like them to be. It occurred to me that if we were more dedicated, and really presented our bodies a living sacrifice to God, holding our bodies for the service of love, and prepared to suffer in the service of love, that we should get the compensation — the inward man in [p. 203] touch with eternity and new creation, and all the blessedness that follows in this chapter; we should be renewed day by day. The whole domain of God’s eternal purpose in Christ Jesus would be brought in a new and living way into the soul day by day. One longs for it. We get touches of it sometimes, a hint of what is eternal, but one longs for renewal day by day, every day giving a new impress of what is spiritual and eternal. That is the compensation for the dedicated man! But if we are laying ourselves out for an easy time we do not get much compensation.