QUICKENING

E. M. Walkinshaw

John 6: 59–63; 2 Corinthians 5: 14–16; Colossians 2: 13–15

It is my desire, dear brethren, to say a word about quickening, more from the point of view of emphasising its importance rather than any endeavour to open up its full meaning. It is very clear that if we are not made to live the state of things will be quite displeasing to God, as being dead. If there is no quickening, another has said, then there is no praise of God, no service of God; hence the importance of being made to live and being kept alive. One would desire to arouse exercise with every one of us regarding it.

It is not, of course, limited to ourselves in this dispensation, because the Psalms refer to it; in particular in Psalm 119 the psalmist several times refers to being quickened, that is, made to live and kept alive. In fact, in that psalm he refers to quickening some eleven times, nine times it is a prayer; maybe at your leisure you could look into those references. He frequently refers to quickening, as seeing the necessity of being lifted from a dead state into a living response to God. I believe there is moral quickening which is according to the word of God; His word quickens us, affecting the conscience. As God’s word reaches us it would touch our consciences so that we distinguish between good and evil; what is right and is to be followed, what is wrong and is to be avoided. But in addition to that there is the quickening of the Spirit, which is not so much, I judge, for our consciences as for our affections; that is the inward action of the Spirit of God which

brings us into life towards God with the consequence of life towards one another.

I read the passage in John because the Lord speaks directly of the Spirit being the Quickener; I think it could read like that from the original. Some had said, “This word is hard”, and I do not doubt it was, but they added “who can hear it?” That, I doubt not, was the addition of unbelief; in fact, those who have taught us, men that we have respected in the past, have told us that the word is hard, and perhaps the Lord’s words in the passage are the most difficult in Scripture to understand. However, let us not say, dear brethren, “who can hear it?”, but let us rather be like the psalmist who says “quicken me” so many times in Psalm 119. I commend the psalm, especially to younger men. It has been commended to them before and I would commend it to them now. It is a long psalm, a psalm well worth looking into to help us in our footsteps here in the path of the will of God, to direct us out of the path of evil without going into it to find out what it is all about.

So the Lord says here, “Does this offend you?” I wonder, dear brethren, if the truth that the Lord has brought offends us. Many indeed have turned back in the recovery; let us not be those who draw back or turn back because things are hard, because there is a resource both in the Lord and in the Spirit to meet every hard question and to meet every problem that arises, whether it be in our histories personally, householdly, assemblywise, or generally. We have a resource in the One who is speaking these words in John 6, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before?” I doubt not that compressed into them is an allusion to His present position on high and, which follows, an allusion to the presence of the Spirit here, so that we have those two great salient facts of Christianity,

Christ at the right hand of God and the presence of the blessed Spirit here.

Now it is very evident, I think, that we cannot quicken ourselves; we have no power to do that; but we can pray, dear brethren, we can be like the psalmist and say, “quicken me according to thy word”, Psalm 119: 154. How wonderful to ask God to do that! It is a sad thing to drop into the state of death through not being made to live and being kept alive in the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore I would exhort each of us to ask for quickening, and to be maintained in it, because if there is no quickening there is no service of God and no testimony of God, there is just the dead outward form according as it is written, “having a form of piety but denying the power of it”, 2 Timothy 3: 5. How much we can see that abroad where, alas, the name of Christ is attached to systems, but is there life there? A mortuary is in order; no arguments, no—difficulties—no need to stand for the truth, everything where it should be, but dead withal. It is not God’s thought, dear brethren, that our meetings should be akin to that, but that they should be alive in the power of the Spirit, so that there should be response to Him and power and effectiveness in the testimony.

So Jesus says here, “It is the Spirit which quickens, the flesh profits nothing”. ‘What a difficult lesson that is to learn; how easily one finds oneself attaching the blessings of Christianity to the first man, supposing that he is to be reformed, added to, or that he can contribute something to the work of God, the ways of God, the purpose of God; or the praise of God; “the flesh profits nothing”. I think one has several times reminded the beloved brethren of the words of Mr. Darby, in reply to a young man who said to him, What shall I study? He replied, Study these four

words well—“the flesh profits nothing”. It neither receives, nor does it communicate, it has been disposed of in judgment in the death of Christ. Now, dear brethren, outside of the Holy Spirit we have no power, no joy, no realization of the blessings of Christianity; outside of the Spirit there is no vitality whatever. I might put natural energy into service, I might say what is right, present the truth in a faultless way (not that I am capable of doing that), but there is nothing in it for God if the Spirit of life is not in it.

I would therefore exhort each of us here to be more before God in prayer to be kept in life, which I believe is the secret of everything for the pleasure of God. And Jesus adds, “the words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life”. I believe they left an indelible impression upon those persons who heard them. Ah, dear brethren, we do need to be preserved from mere religious formality, a mere assent to the truth, without being governed by it. How easy it is to assent to the truth, but when it comes to the application of it disinclined to be governed by it in the power and grace of the Holy Spirit.

Well, some persons here turned away back and walked no more with Him; it is a solemn fact that in this gospel Jesus does not go after them. You might say, Would not the Shepherd go after the sheep? True, the Shepherd will go after the sheep until He find it, but these persons are called disciples. I trust there is nobody here who is thinking of turning back, becoming discouraged by the hard way, the apparent disintegration of things in the world, and even among God’s people. Do not turn away back and walk no more with Jesus. It is very simple to say, and every true believer would say, ‘Jesus is at the right hand of God’; but He is here in testimony too. Have you located Him?

Have I located Him? May I add a further question, Are you exercised to locate Him? or are you content to go on with a religious routine day by day? I would lay the exercise upon every one of us here, to locate the Lord Jesus and not turn away back and walk no more with Him.

The appeal to the twelve is, “Will ye also go away?”. According to the footnote it means. Is it your will or disposition to go away? Surely we can raise this question with one another, not unkindly or suggestively, but we can surely raise it graciously with one another, ‘Are you minded to go away because of the difficulties of the path?’ The Lord, I think, would encourage us to go on, but at the same time raise this searching question. Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” We have so often noted that it is not ‘where’, or ‘to what place’, or ‘to what company’, but ‘to whom shall we go? Thou hast words of life eternal’. I believe, beloved brethren, we come into the enjoyment of life eternal in the immediate presence of Christ in His assembly. That little company was, I fully agree, the remnant of Israel, but also the nucleus of the assembly. That little company surrounding the Lord Jesus was in attachment to Him as the true Aaron, Minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched and not man (Hebrews 8: 2), a living system, quickened by the Spirit of God.

Now in 2 Corinthians 5 the apostle speaks of the love of the Christ constraining us—that includes, I suppose, those associated with Paul—“having judged this: that one died for all, then all have died”. What a solemn thing that is, that when Jesus died the whole scene was one of moral death. We have been taught that, and, I think, taught it accurately. When Jesus was dead the whole scene was one of moral death. “All have

died”, but Paul adds, “and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised”. I believe “they who live” are quickened persons, that is, persons who have been made to live by the power of the Spirit of God, but made to live in relation to a risen Man in another realm altogether. So that we are not just made to live and left, so to speak, without an object; but we are made to live by the Spirit of God with an object before us, which is Christ. What a wonderful suggestion this is, dear brethren, that out of a scene of moral death there are those brought into a scene of life, with Christ, the risen Man, as their object.

He Himself is risen and living and it has often occurred to me, Well, if He is risen and living, what is He doing? Surely we do not think of the Lord as quiescent or inactive? What is the Lord doing today? That is a pertinent question. He is doing much sovereignly, but I believe He is operating, at any rate, to bring about an increase in that call, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”, Revelation 22: 17. Now I think that is for living persons, those who have been quickened by the Spirit of God. So it says, “that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised”. ‘Be Thou the object bright and fair. To fill and satisfy the heart’ (Hymn 328); that is the heart which has been made alive by the power of the Spirit and united to that blessed Man in heaven.

But, brethren, may I remind all of us that I believe the force of the word is not only to make alive but to keep alive; we need to be kept alive, and I think we are kept alive by constant contact and the strengthening of our links with the Holy Spirit of God. I am sure, for my part at any rate, that where I lack is in personal devotions to Him,

in prayer, reading of the Word, meditation, and reading of the ministry—the good teaching that has reached us. I feel I lack, but maybe particularly in prayer.

Now one man of God said that when you pray you often find a power against you for which you cannot give an account. Have you found that? I have found it often. There is a verse of a hymn known among Christians generally—

‘And Satan trembles when he sees

The weakest saint upon his knees’.

However, I doubt if Satan flees when he sees a saint upon his knees; I believe he attacks him; that is my impression and I might say, my experience too. I have experienced what that man of God said, a power against me when seeking to pray which I cannot account for, because I cannot account for the specious and inexplicable ways in which the devil gets at God’s people, particularly, those who are set to enter upon the purpose of God. That is why Scripture uses the word ‘ Persevere in prayer’, Colossians 4: 2. So, therefore, I exhort us to persevere in prayer. Several times Paul says it. Do not give up, keep on keeping on; as the prophet said, “Give him no rest” (Isaiah 62: 7); how wonderful of the prophet of old to speak like that about Jehovah! So let us persevere in prayer; let us persevere in meditation; let us give more time to the things of God and, in our immediate context, seek that we may be quickened in our affections, and that Christ, in another realm altogether, may be the object of those affections.

Now I touch briefly on Colossians because there we have a reference to being quickened together with Him. It is very likely the case that the Colossians were in the enjoyment of this, but the question is, dear brethren, are we? The Colossians, of course, have long since departed;

the question then is whether we experience living in Christ’s life. Paul says, “quickened together with him”. Notice the word “together”; the “together” does not apply to Him, it applies to us—the active power of the Spirit of God making our affections alive together, with Him. Now most of us would know that the “with him” is peculiar to the assembly; it is not said of any other family. Other families will be made to live, as the psalmist said,

“quicken me according to thy word”, and I suppose every family in some way or another will have the divine touch to bring them into life and response, but as to the assembly, the saints of this dispensation, it is “with him”; so we are ‘buried with Him’, and then ‘raised with Him’, and then ‘quickened together with Him’.

May we be exercised about this and the peculiar privilege of being associated with Christ in life. As we have said, He has been raised from among the dead, but what the Spirit of God is seeking to bring about today is the consciousness of the blessings about which we know so much. We know them well, I believe, but we experience them but little, that is to say, if my experience is any reflection of that of others. But the Spirit of God is available and I think the object that is before Him is to bring us in our day into the realisation of the blessings which Christ has secured for us and make them good in us.

May the Lord exercise every one of us here that we might be preserved from a dead, religious rut or routine, whatever it be, church, chapel, meetings, anything; but may we be preserved in our affections. Let us appeal to the Spirit who quickens. Think of the morrow, for example; we shall come together to remember the Lord; we shall have part in the service of praise. Will it just be an ordinance? Shall I just respond because

think it is time I did? or will there be life and energy and what is pleasing to God in His assembly in its normal function in His praise? May the Lord exercise, but encourage, every one of our hearts as to the reality of Christianity and the Spirit’s desire that we should experience what belongs to us in the goodness of God. May it be so, for His glory.

Address at Gillingham
26 June 1982