EXTRACT

I pray to God in His great grace to make it plain to all here. All these truths we have to enter into experimentally; the mere statement of them, or the mere apprehension of them doctrinally will not suffice, will not bring deliverance to you. All has to be wrought in the soul. The soul has to learn practically and experimentally the truth of another Man, and (what is so essential if you are going to join company with that Man) that you must part company with the man that is here, the man that is dominated by sin. That is of all moment. And in that way the believer learns what the true character of the flesh is, and the righteousness of God’s judgment of it, that God has “condemned sin in the flesh”; thus the whole state has been condemned, that the believer might be “not in the flesh but in the Spirit”, that the Spirit might be life because of righteousness, and also be the Spirit of sonship to lead the believer, according to the grace of God, into what is true in Christ. May God give to us to understand it in His great grace, and to be led by the Spirit of God on that blessed line where we not only know the love of God, but where by the Spirit we respond to that love, that is, we cry, “Abba, Father”, with the blessed consciousness by the Spirit that we are the children of God; and if suffering with Him here, if in that association, that we are “heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together”.

F. E. Raven (Vol. 2, p.351)

Edited and Published by J. Strachan, 59 Frederick Street, Dundee, DD3 9DE, Scotland Printed by Crystal Stationery, 22 Western Road, Billericay, Essex CM12 9DZ, (T) (01277) 650661