04.50. LESSON 50

LESSON 50

While it is not essential to the working of the "One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all" that men know how he performs his work, it is essential, if they are to reap the fruits of his religious workings, that they know how to cooperate with him, and that they chose to do so. This basic knowledge, which God is kind enough to vouchsafe in his Word, is that, from start to finish, men must humbly trust, wholly obey, and actually depend upon him for wisdom and power—belief, obedience, and dependence are the key words. Only the triune God dwelling in men can heal their inherently dislocated, depraved nature. What relief, gratitude, and hope that fumbling, ineffectual man may resign to him who is willing and able all responsibility for both means and results! A sufficient answer to unbelievers who say that this robs Christians of incentive, ambition and energy, and makes life colorless and unchallenging—in a word, depersonalizes them—is Paul himself. Within three days at Damascus, Paul passed through a form of death and resurrection which so identified him with Christ that Christ lived in him and express himself through him, thus supplementing Paul’s natural powers. Instead of his natural powers being suppressed, they were, with Paul’s eager cooperation of course, geared into divine power, and strengthened, heightened, and made effective so that Paul was no longer unable to do what he willed and struggled desperately to do (Romans 7:19).

Though Paul did not understand all about how God worked in him, he knew that God did, and left the making of his life in God’s hands. Paul, having "no confidence in the flesh" (Php 3:3), relinquished the antichristian, fleshly struggle after sanctification, as he had relinquished such struggling after justification. This alert passivity toward God filled him with both "all the fullness of God." as he prayed the Ephesians might be, and with all activity toward men.

Paul’s own, oft-repeated explanation of his deep, constitutional change was that Christ "In the power of the Holy Spirit" lived in him, and gave him strength beyond his own, according to his need. The Spirit never did anything for, in, or through Paul, however, against his will and effort. We need not fear that God will make us more fruitful socially, or better personally—less worldly, more liberal givers, or more devout worshippers—than we both will and work to be. As electricity flows through a wire into things not insulated, so the Holy Spirit flows through faith into spiritual men, for they are not insulated by the flesh. This involves the New birth "of water and the Spirit," which Christ in an interview with Nicodemus makes an indispensable condition of entrance into the kingdom of God. Christ explained to Nicodemus, who was puzzled about "how" he could be born again, that, since the "how" of the birth was as independent of direct human power and control as was the "how" of the wind, he must leave it to God (John 3:3-12). The creation of the "new man" (Ephesians 2:15), as was the creation of Adam, is the work of God. Nicodemus’ part was as simple and down to earth, however, as was setting a sail to use the mysterious wind to run his boat. At the set time for establishing the kingdom, the glorified Christ sent the Spirit to preside over its inauguration. When believers on that occasion (Pentecost) asked for directions, the Spirit replied: "Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). Beginning then, to all who are "born of water and the Spirit" into his family (kingdom or church), because this is the way to ask him for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13), God gives, as a birthright, the indwelling, family Spirit, "Crying, Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6).

Men who received the word of the Spirit on Pentecost were "Born of water and the Spirit." If Nicodemus was among them, he had consented to let God do a work in him (Php 2:13), which he could neither do for himself nor understand (not expected to do so) after God did it. Should this unconditional surrender to God seem difficult to men otherwise irrevocably lost? Have men today who have not obeyed the Pentecostal word of the Spirit been born into the kingdom?

Eternal Life Did not Adam’s creation in God’s likeness include, so long as he was loyal to God, eternal life? In his fall away from God, he lost eternal life, but not eternal existence. Christ said to the Jews: "Work not for the bread that perisheth, but for the bread which abideth unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him the Father, even God, hath sealed." Again, "He that believeth hath eternal life" (John 6:27-47). 1 John 5:11-12 adds: "The witness is this that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son, hath the life: he that hath not the Son, hath not the life." Mankind is thus divided into two mutually exclusive classes: men with eternal life, and men with merely eternal existence—spiritual men and fleshly men. In his talk with Nicodemus, Christ recognizes these two classes of men, and calls the process which restores eternal life to eternally existing men of Adam’s fallen posterity, that they may come into the kingdom of God and again possess real life—"The life which is life indeed" (1 Timothy 6:19)—a New Birth. He tells Nicodemus that instead of man’s merely making the application of a moral lesson which he has learned, in this birth God imparts his own, eternal, personal life to men who are dead through trespasses and sins, without God and hope in the world (Ephesians 2:1-12), as in fleshly birth a father imparts his fleshly life. Clearly, each of these births, as does the wind, requires superhuman, "heavenly things."

Eternal, spiritual life for men, both before and after death, is life lived in relation to eternal, spiritual realities, as fleshly life is life in relation to temporal, fleshly shadows. Unregenerated men live dominated by the flesh. When they are regenerated, they begin again to live eternal lives dominated by the Spirit, such as Adam lived before he fell. Eternal life is to be thought of rather as life above death, hence untouched by death, than as life after death. If Adam lost original eternal life through sin, restored eternal life may be lost again through sin. Our present Christian life is the life of God himself restored to us in Christ. Of course it survives death. In speaking of his own probable death, Paul says that it would be "gain" to him, for, after death, he would enjoy fuller fellowship with Christ than was possible on earth (Php 1:21-23). This view of human life as one eternal piece, which the incident of death does not disrupt, gives Christianity an unspeakable worth, power, and appeal above all other religions to a dead, hopeless world. Even the body is discarded but temporarily, for, when the Lord comes, it shall be raised from the tomb a spiritual body.

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