THE ESSENTIAL TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY
[p. 8] THE ESSENTIAL TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY
I do not touch on the latter part of this chapter, it shows us the way in which the Spirit of God connects Himself with the experience of the saints. I desire to say a word, looking to the Lord to enable me, in reference to the Spirit, and in connection with what I sought to speak on two afternoons since, what is really the essential truth of Christianity; a new man in a new scene. I did not say much then as to the Spirit. Here we have the office of the Spirit in us as individuals, to make good in us that which is already true of us, before God. I do not say one word this afternoon as to what is corporate or collective, only as to what is individual. It has often been remarked as to the epistle to the Romans, that it never goes beyond what is individual for the Christian. The apostle takes up the Christian in his individuality, and carries that thought through the epistle. In other places we get the Christian circle, and what the Christian is as united to Christ. I would make one remark more, every epistle without exception I believe assumes the complete work of God in the Christian in principle. Every Christian does not know it. The epistles are not given us to explain the work of God, they assume the work of God. Every Christian is regarded as justified and as having the Holy Spirit, and is by the Holy Spirit united to Christ. Every epistle assumes that, but the object of the epistle is to make practically good in souls what is already true of them in principle before God. As I said, not to teach the work of God, it assumes that. The epistles are all written to Christians, to those who had everything God confers; forgiveness of sins, justification, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and if I have the Holy Spirit I get no more from God.
[p. 9] Henceforth, all is the work of the Holy Spirit in me. To anyone who understands what Christianity is, this is an important point. There is another point I would mention, and I trust nobody will be startled by it; that is, that Christianity is not a system of actualities, it is a system of realities, but not of actualities. As to the positive side of it, it is a system of actualities in Christ, and of faith in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. People who try to turn Christianity as to our side into actualities, get on to a kind of millennial ground which is not the truth. To saints on the earth during the millennium the blessing of God will be in actuality, but Christian blessing is not actuality but is reality to faith by the Holy Spirit; and I believe anybody who accepts that will find it a great help in understanding the Scriptures. It leads on to what I have to say as to the Holy Spirit. In the passage before us we have the Holy Spirit presented to us in three aspects — for deliverance, for life, for sonship. I ask anybody who would tell me that Christianity is a system of actualities, whether for all sense of deliverance, life, and sonship, he is not entirely dependent on the Spirit? Could you tell me then that Christianity is a system of actualities while you are entirely dependent on the Spirit for all sense of what it is? I think there are many Christians who know little or nothing about sonship. They may have received everything God can confer upon them, but they are not in faith, and therefore do not understand. I am not saying the Spirit is not in them, but they are not in the power of the Spirit, and outside of that power we can know nothing at all about sonship. It does not belong to earth, “Ye are all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus”. Therefore it is not a blessing connected with earth, it belongs to heaven. I get into the reality of it on earth, just as far as I am in the power of the Spirit of sonship. The apostle in announcing the truth says, “Ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus”.
Then afterwards he says, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father”. That is, we cry, “Abba, Father”, exactly in proportion as we are under the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, beloved brethren, what I say is immensely important, and why? Because christendom has practically put out the Holy Spirit. I know they cannot do it actually, but practically they have. Look at the dark days of christendom and see how the Holy Spirit was put out; He had little or no place with men, and in the present day what does the prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit mean, but practical unbelief in His presence here? But the true secret is unbelief in Christ’s Person. If there was real faith in Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit would be known. But when you see the Holy Spirit thus practically displaced by christendom, it is no great wonder if people do not enter into the character of the Christian’s place. It is important to insist upon the presence of the Holy Spirit with the saints.
I desire just to say a few words on these three points in the passage I have read, the Spirit for deliverance, the Spirit for life, and the Spirit for sonship. In the second verse of the chapter we read “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the law of sin and death”, and in verse 10, “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness”. And in verse 14, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”. Now just think what are the three things necessary to you as Christians. You first want deliverance, then life, and with that sonship, and you get all in the Spirit. First, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”. Now life in Christ Jesus is to my mind an objective thought. What the expression reveals to me is this, that before God, there is a complete new order of life in man in a new scene, life in Christ Jesus. We can understand what life in man down here is. It really is death morally. Talk of life in this world, while the sentence of death is upon man! For the Christian, Christ has “annulled death, and brought life, and incorruptibility to light through the gospel”. What hinders entering into life is because people are not free of death. The two things must go together, but nine out of ten do not realise the fact that death is the judgment of God upon man. The infidel says, Yes, he must die, but man was ever mortal. He thus denies the moral aspect of death, and proves what a fool he is, for when you look at death in its connection with relationships down here, it is evident man does not die as the beast. Death breaks up the whole system of human relationships here with the affections proper to them, and brings a whole course of serious changes in its train, and yet you deny any moral aspect of death in connection with God. You accept the moral aspect of death in relationships down here, and know that when a beast dies there is nothing of the kind, and yet refuse to accept it in connection with God. Death is the judgment of God upon man. It is not that men were made to die, or pass away by natural dissolution. It is the sentence of God upon man by reason of sin, and until free of death he does not enter into life. It is not to get rid of death in its actuality, but we pass out of death into life.
Well now, how is deliverance brought about? By the revelation of life in Christ Jesus. Never was brought to man before what is brought now to the Christian by the Holy Spirit. The report of life in man in another scene. Where? In the presence and in the love of God, in the glory of God. We get beyond that in 2 Corinthians 3, we “looking on the [p. 12] glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”. We see here the true Moses, the expression of what God’s thoughts are about man. The Spirit of God has come down to report the great truth of life in the Man Christ Jesus, the true ark of the covenant and mercy-seat; the glory of God that shines in His face, the moral effulgence displayed in the Person of Jesus. Well, He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; and when that is revealed to me I am delivered, and you never get deliverance otherwise. How do you get deliverance if not thus? The secret of deliverance is the revelation to my soul of life in man in another scene, the scene of the glory of God; and I look at the glory of the Lord and am changed into the same image. What is the divine thought as to man? Adam, perfect in his place, and for his place, was not the full divine and final thought about man. Now we see in Christ in glory, the divine and final thought of God about man. He is the true ark of the covenant, and the veil being rent all is revealed, and I look at the glory of God, and I am delivered from what is here. I am set free. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”. That is the first point, the second is later on in the epistle. “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you”. These two verses involve a good bit of surrender — surrender of the flesh, that is what it comes to. I have to surrender because I am not now in the flesh but in the Spirit. Everything now is to spring from the Spirit; not simply that I am to be guided by the Spirit in divine things, but in all. I do not expect the direct guidance of the Spirit in the [p. 13] business of this world, but I do expect that in every circumstance my mind may be under the control of God’s Spirit, and thus to do my business a great deal better, to do it according to God. I want to be a capable man down here, but not according to man’s ideas. I was once ambitious to be a successful man in this world, but I have lost the desire of it now. Still I have the desire to be a capable man here for God, only in the power of the Spirit. I do not want to be ruled by the flesh any longer in the least thing, nor by the will, but by the Spirit of God. I am to be like a house under new management, the management is to be entirely of the Holy Spirit. “You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”. He is not regarded as being a Christian, he is not in the spirit of Christianity. But “if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness”. The Spirit is in the normal condition of the Christian the spring of thought, feeling and affection. There is nothing more wonderful than a man down here indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The state in glory is hardly so wonderful as this. What more inconceivably great, than to be actually down here in flesh and walking about here in flesh, and yet my body the temple of the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit takes the control and management; we are completely identified with the Spirit, and this because of righteousness.
One word more, it involves having the senses exercised to discern both good and evil, to distinguish between what is of the flesh, and what of God. If people will live after the flesh, they greatly hinder the Spirit of God; for “the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh”. This is the position which the Spirit assumes in regard to the flesh. He will not countenance it in any shape or form. “These things are opposed one to the other, that ye should [p. 14] not do those things which ye desire”. There is many a thing that flesh is after, that you would not call grossly wrong, but there is no neutral ground, we are either controlled by the flesh or by the Spirit. There are a vast number of Christians trying to live between the two. They are not carried away by the gross things of the flesh, but I do not think they live in the Spirit practically; and what that means is poor testimony and but little enjoyment or joy. One word now on the third point. “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”. What we get here by the Spirit is a cry that expresses affection. Affection is the moral outcome and the real good of relationship. “Abba, Father” is the language of affection. We are placed in affection, and the love of God is revealed in the heart. We get that side in chapter 5, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”; but here we get the Spirit of liberty and the cry of affection. I not only enjoy, but I respond to the love of God. People do not like the expression ‘in it’, but it is a very important expression in regard to Christianity, and rightly so when it is a question of faith. If you ask what I am in, I answer in the love of God. The love of God is a reality to my soul. I not only know what God has done for me, but I am in His love. It is a present subsisting love and I am with the Father in that way. I cry, Abba, Father, the expression of affection. “The Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”, that is our response. Thus we have the great and blessed function of the Spirit, which places us in fellowship with Christ. The revelation of God is in Christ, but we have not only the revelation, but Him as the object of divine love in man in the place where He is. We are in Him there, in the fellowship of God’s Son, called to it, all [p. 15] a blessed stream of eternal affection. We know God as Father and are in His love, and more than that respond to it in the power of the Holy Spirit. We cry Abba, Father, in fellowship with God’s Son in that circle of affection, and I thank God we are in it, and the practical effect is in our becoming more capable for the will of God here upon earth. “Not conformed to this world: but ... transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”. It is just this I wanted to say. I honestly believe before God that it is of vital moment to accept the place which God has been pleased to give us by His Spirit down here, and to learn that our blessings, while not actualities, are good for faith by the power of the Holy Spirit. They are spiritualities, if you like, for they are in the power of the Holy Spirit. The first traces are brought before us in the Romans. There are three steps in the work of grace in man; first man is born again, what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Man’s soul is thus placed in touch with God. The second is, the love of God is revealed to the soul through the Son of man lifted up, and lastly the believer receives the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then the Holy Spirit takes the place which I have tried to bring before you this afternoon. First for deliverance, then as life for righteousness to take the rule, and lastly as the Spirit of sonship, whereby we respond in the language of affection to the love of God to us and cry Abba, Father.