02.02. Part 2

Part II MUST THE PRESENCE OF INDWELLING SIN NECESSARILY INTERRUPT COMMUNION?

"How is it," some one may enquire, "that the very presence of such an evil thing as the flesh in a believer is not a hindrance to his communion with God?" Let me seek to explain this by using another illustration. A father and son sit at home one day in happy communion with each other. What is meant by "communion" is, that they share the same thoughts and feelings about every matter that comes before them. Presently, however, another child comes in from taking a ramble in the woods, and lays upon the table some wild berries. The father at once condemns them as poisonous, and totally unfit for food, and desires that they should be immediately thrown away. Now, if the son shares his father’s thought about them, and condemns them too, you can see at once that the mere presence of the bad fruit has not occasioned the slightest breach of communion between them. But if, on the other hand, the son, deceived by the enticing appearance of the berries, refuses to accept his father’s judgment and seeks to retain them, he is now out of communion; and, if he ventures to taste them, will be sure to suffer in consequence. When, however, in humble confession of his self-will, he is brought to see his folly, and to take sides with his father in condemning the fruit, communion is again restored. When the believer, who has learned from God these blessed truths, discovers, as he surely will, that sin still "dwelleth in him," and that the old nature is as bad as ever, or worse, he can, instead of fruitlessly attempting to make it better, take sides with God against it. He never regards it as anything but the deadliest enemy, ever to be distrusted, and never to be indulged. He knows that God has utterly condemned it at the cross, and, therefore, he utterly condemns it too. He reckons himself to be dead to it, but "alive unto God in Christ Jesus."

Oh, what a comfort it is, that God is expecting no good thing from the flesh! that He has given it up forever as a totally worthless thing, and that He would have us do the same! Neither has it any rightful claim upon us. We are no longer debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh (Romans 8:12). And, though still responsible to exercise the greatest watchfulness in not allowing it to act, yet God gives us, through the death and resurrection of Christ, to regard it as no longer having any place in our new state as "in the Spirit" before Him. The cross of Christ forever snapped the link that we once had with the first Adam, fallen; and the Holy Ghost has brought into our souls the life of the last Adam, risen. We are not "in the flesh" at all, according to God’s reckoning, but in the Spirit; and the only life that we now have before Him is the life of Christ. So that the apostle could say, "I [have been] crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). But let us now consider the next question, viz., WHAT IS THE SECRET OF OUR POWER?

If you will call to mind what we were saying about the hen and her brood of ducklings, I think you will see, in her distress, a picture of the state of numbers of precious souls today. For what is really the cause of her sore trouble? She cannot make the ducklings to be what she knows by natural instinct a brood of chickens ought to be, and the older they get, the more self-willed they become. They seem determined to get into the water whenever the least opportunity is afforded. Sometimes, it is true, they are all at rest together under her wing, and then, perhaps, she thinks she is at last gaining the victory, and making them better. But, alas! again and again she is doomed to disappointment, for they only get worse and worse. The farmer’s wife, however, hearing her cry of distress one day, sends her little girl to keep the ducklings out of the pond; for she plainly sees that the hen’s trouble about this part of the brood is seriously interfering with her care for the little chickens.

Oh, what a comfort is this new helper to the hen! For though she found no way to improve the manners of the tiresome truants, she has now, at all events, got a power to control them.

Now, every one that is born of the Spirit of God, possesses instincts peculiar to the new nature which has been imparted to him—instincts which cause him to say, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man." But he finds also that he has got to do with instincts and desires of an entirely opposite character, viz., those peculiar to the old nature. Thus we read of "the things of the flesh" and "the things of the Spirit," and the tastes and desires of both stand in the most direct contrast. But what troubles the new convert is, that he cannot make the flesh to be what the word of God teaches him a newborn soul ought to be, and the law, though he delights in it after the inward man, gives him no POWER. In other words, he is trying to accomplish what God has declared to be an utter impossibility; viz., making the flesh subject to His holy law (See Romans 8:7-8). He finds that the flesh will mind the things of the flesh, and is very enmity itself to the law of God, and even to God Himself. And since this is so, the greater his earnestness to accomplish this impossibility, the more intense his misery. Indeed, to apply law to the flesh, in seeking to make it subject, is only to manifest still more its desperate willfulness. If you pour water upon unslaked lime, instead of cooling it, you will only bring out the fire that lies hidden within. Thus it is with the flesh. The law, applied to it, only brings out its "enmity," though the enmity was there before. "By the law is the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20). Though the newborn soul has a nature that "would do good," yet he finds, alas! that "evil is present with him," and it is not until he gives up his struggle as utterly hopeless, and looks outside himself, crying, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?" that deliverance really comes; and then he thanks God, through Jesus Christ.

Thus he has learned, what every one must learn, before deliverance can be realized in an experimental way; first, that the "flesh" is an utterly worthless thing, that there is neither good in it nor remedy for it (Romans 7:18; Romans 8:7); second, that even in the new nature, with all its right desires, there is no real power either for good or against evil. But the Spirit of God does more than merely quicken a dead sinner into life. He afterwards becomes the power of that life. When the newborn soul believes the "gospel of his salvation," the Holy Ghost, as a distinct Person, comes into him as an abiding Dweller there (Ephesians 1:13). He is "sealed unto the day of redemption;" i.e., the redemption of the body (Ephesians 4:30. See also Romans 8:9, Romans 8:14, Romans 8:16, and the Lord’s own words, John 14:17). According to 1 Corinthians 6:19, his body becomes "the temple of the Holy Ghost" which is in him. He is no longer his own, but "bought with a price." A few months since I saw the following announcement fixed outside a large house (it looked like some hotel), "This house will be reopened," at such a date, "under entirely new management." I presume that it had changed hands, and that there was, therefore, new proprietorship too. Now this announcement at once brought the scripture just quoted to my mind. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) The house was the same; its windows, doors, chimneys, outhouses, all the same, but there was a new proprietor, and, in consequence, entirely new management." So it is with the believer. He is same individual, with the same faculties as before his conversion; is in the same business, perhaps, with precisely similar social circumstances surrounding him, but he is now the personal property of another. He is "Christ’s," and, as such, is now put under entirely "new management," i.e., the Holy Ghost enters his body; takes up his residence there, hence-forward to "manage the house" upon heavenly principles. How solemn! Yet how intensely blessed!

Now, herein is the believer’s power for every activity that is according to God. Here is his power to control the flesh, to "mortify the deeds of the body" (See Romans 8:13). Just as the little girl resisted the natural will of the ducklings, so that, by her means, the hen was able to keep them under due control, so we are told in Galatians 5:17, that "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, in order that ye should not [1] do the things that ye would." What we need to be careful about is, not to "grieve" the One who has thus come to "manage" us, even the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30).

[1] This is a more correct translation.

There are two important things to remember in connection with power.

1st. That we must be brought to the experimental discovery that we have none of our own.

2nd. That it is only in absolute dependence upon Christ that the Spirit’s power is made effectual in us. Our power is in the weakness that clings to Another.

But, it may be asked, if the evil nature still remains in every converted person, and that evil nature is ever ready to assert itself, how can it be possible that—

"WHOSOEVER IS BORN OF GOD CANNOT SIN?"

Well, carefully mark in the first place, that it is not some peculiar advanced attainment of just a few who may be said to have "faith for it," as it is sometimes called. It takes in the whole of the newborn race—WHOSOEVER is born of God."

But, remarks another, this statement seems to be a thorough contradiction to all that I either experience in myself or see in others! Well, it may seem so, but let us look at it a little more closely, and prayerfully, bearing in mind that the first step toward understanding the word of God is to believe it. "By faith we understand..." (Hebrews 11:3). And here I would give you an illustration, much used by a Spirit-taught servant of God, now at rest in the presence of his Lord; viz., the well-known practice of grafting an apple tree upon a crab tree stock. As you are aware, no doubt, the head of the crab tree is first cut off; then a small portion of an apple tree is carefully inserted, or "grafted in," as it is called; then it is securely guarded by a covering of clay round the joint, and left to grow and develop in the coming spring and summer.

Now let us, in thought, go to the orchard where the tree in question is planted, and enquire more about it of the gardener.

"What kind of tree do you call this?" we ask.

"An apple tree," he replies.

"But why don’t you say that it is partly a crab tree and partly an apple tree?"

"Because we gardeners never think of talking like that. It was once a crab tree in the wood, now it is an apple tree in the orchard. It is really the same individual tree; but when we cut off its head, its history as a.crab tree came to an end; and when the new graft first showed signs of life, its new history as an apple tree from that day commenced."

"But doesn’t this apple tree still bear crabs?"

"No! and what is more, it cannot. It is just as impossible for the apple tree to bear crabs, as it was impossible for the crab tree to bring forth apples." But do you mean to say then, that there is nothing whatever of the "crab" nature about this tree?"

No! But I do say that there is nothing of the "crab" that has not been condemned as such, and if it should show signs of life by sending up shoots from the old stock, I at once take the knife and never think of sparing even the smallest sprout."

Let us now apply this figure. The wild crab tree represents a. man in his natural state, before he is born of God. At his second birth a new nature, like the apple tree graft, is produced in him by the Spirit and the word.

Now the apostle John, in his epistles, generally speaks of things in a very abstract way. Just as the gardener who insisted that the tree was only an "apple tree," so John in the passage referred to looks at the believer only in connection with the new nature—the divine nature he possesses as born of God. And therefore, just as it impossible for an apple tree (looked at simply as such) to bear crabs, and that because it is an apple tree, so it is equally impossible for the one who is born of God (looked at simply as such) to commit sin. "His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." How could a divine nature sin?

Now this divine nature was really the nature that Christ manifested in His blessed pathway through this world. Thus, He did not sin. How could He? He overcame the world. The wicked one could not touch Him. "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me" (John 14:30). And, as we have already seen, these are the very things that are said to be true of those who are born of God. So that the apostle can say: " Which thing is true in Him [i.e., in Christ] and in you" (1 John 2:8). How wondrous it is! Well may we exclaim with holy adoration, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not." But while John speaks of the divine nature in this absolute, abstract way, he does not, on the other hand, ignore the existence of the sinful nature in the believer. So in 1 John 1:8, he says: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Then, in 1 John 2:1, we are exhorted not to sin, and the provision pointed out if we do fall into sin, viz., an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who restores us again to communion with the Father, by bringing us, as His erring children, to see our folly and confess our sins. We have, moreover, the comforting assurance in 1 John 2:9, that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." But why faithful and just? Because Jesus Christ the righteous made full satisfaction for sins, once and forever, by His precious blood upon the cross.

Now, in Paul’s writings, we have brought before us the Spirit’s teaching as to the believer’s entire deliverance from his old standing in Adam, and his place of complete justification and perfect acceptance in Christ. He shows us that though there are actually two distinct natures in the believer, yet that because God has condemned sin in the flesh in the person of His own Son upon the cross, we are as believers privileged to reckon that our old "crab tree" standing has, once for all, come to an end there, as before Him, judicially; that our old man has been crucified with Christ; that we have been "cut off" as men in the flesh (Colossians 2:11), and that we are no longer reckoned as "in the flesh." Thus He can speak of the time when we were in the flesh (Romans 7:5); and in Romans 8:9, can plainly state, "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." Just as the tree, if it could speak, would be able to say, "I haven’t lost my individuality as a tree, but though I was once a crab tree in the wood, I am now an apple tree in the garden."

How unspeakably blessed it is then, to know that God would have us see ourselves no longer in connection with the condemned life of the first Adam, but in the risen life of Christ, the last Adam. "For ye are dead," He says, "and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). "There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION to them which are IN CHRIST JESUS" (Romans 8:1).

Let me add a practical word in conclusion. WHICH NATURE SHALL I GRATIFY?

We have seen that there are not only two natures, but that, with their different origins, they have widely different tastes; thus, there are "the things of the flesh" and "the things of the Spirit." Let us not forget that both these natures will be daily calling our attention to their distinctive cravings. See those two young birds in that hedge-sparrow’s nest; both are clamorous for food. The young cuckoo, that was hatched there, cries, "Feed me;" and the little hedge-sparrow, in the same nest cries, "Feed me.’’ So with the two natures; only that while both those nestlings thrive on the same kind of food, the two natures in a Christian cannot, for what feeds the old only starves the new; while that which is food for the new is thoroughly distasteful to the old.

We are told, therefore, in Romans 13:14, to make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof; and in 1 Peter 2:11, to abstain from "fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." On the other hand we are exhorted, "As newborn babes, to desire the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2). Let us, then, be like vigilant sentries on the watch, challenging all that we read, or think, or do, or say, with this test: Will this be food for the renewed nature, or will it minister to the flesh? Let us allow nothing to pass muster that would do the latter. Peter warns us that it is our fleshly lusts which "war against the soul." How many a difficulty would this simple question settle for us! And let us never forget that, apart altogether from the question of the salvation of the soul, there are practical consequences in this world, both to our "sowing to the flesh" and "sowing to the Spirit." "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7). So that if we "sow to the flesh" we may surely expect to "reap corruption." But let us never allow the government of our Father’s hand to diminish our confidence in the love of our Father’s heart. May increased tenderness of conscience and distrust of self be ours, dear fellow-believer. May Christ Himself be more and more our daily food—His precious Word our constant delight.

GEO. C.

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