I was brought up in the very heart of the religious life of Wales, for my grandfather was a Welsh divine, well known throughout the Principality in his day; and my father’s house was a rendezvous for the ministers as they passed hither and thither on their Master’s work. My childhood’s memories gather round their visits and the great meetings of the Sunday-schools, when often I sat as a tiny child in the midst of the grave elders in the “big pew”, listening with intense interest to the “howl” of the minister.
“The mercy of the Lord is … unto children’s children; but as it is often with children brought up in the midst of religious surroundings, the true inward change of heart did not come until I had married and moved away to England. Then it occurred without the aid of any human instrument, but the day – New Year’s Day – and hour are imprinted on my mind.
Only a deep, inward desire to know that I was a child of God; a taking down of my (too little read) Bible from the shelf; a turning over the leaves, and the eye falling on the words, “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” [Isaiah 53:6]; again, a casual turn of the sacred pages, and the words, “He that believeth hath eternal life”[John 6:47].
A quick facing out whether I did believe that God had laid my sins upon the Lamb of God on the Cross; a pause of wonderment that it really said that I had eternal life if I simply believed God’s Word; a quick cry of “Lord, I do believe” – and one more soul had passed from death to life [John 5:24], a trophy of the grace of God, and the love of Him Who died. The Spirit of God instantly bore witness with my spirit that I was a child of God [Rom 8:16], and deep peace filled my soul.
The new life bore fruit in that I sought to conquer my besetting sins, whereas hitherto I had found myself at their mercy, as I feebly attempted to restrain them. But my attempts still ended in abject failure, and the succeeding few months were a record of bitter repentance, and many tears over sins I could not conquer. At this point we removed to Richmond, Surrey, and found our way to Holy Trinity Church. The first sermon I heard from Rev. Evan H. Hopkins was an opening of heaven to my soul. I learned the secret of victory, and it was not long before I proved the power of God to deliver from the bondage of sin through the precious blood of Christ.
Under the Spirit-lit teaching of Mr. Hopkins, and the earnest, loving help of his noble wife, I learned the joy of full surrender and the possibilities of a Spirit-filled life [Eph 5:18]. But active service for Christ seemed far away from me, for from childhood my health had been frail, and now winter after winter was spent in increasing suffering from bronchial and lung attacks. It seemed as if my life was slowly ebbing away. Nevertheless, in 1890, with apparently only a brief span of life before me, I ventured to take the hon. secretaryship of the Richmond Y.W.C.A. Institute – “If only for six months”, I said, for my whole heart was drawn out in service for the King.
Gradually I learnt to draw upon the Lord for strength for His work, so that in spite of continued ill-health and suffering, I worked, and organised, and laboured incessantly. But after a time I became conscious that the spiritual results were not equivalent to the labour of the work. I began to question whether I knew the fulness of the Spirit. Without doubt I had received Him, and had “entered into rest” as concerned my own life and fellowship with God [Heb 4:10]; but, when I compared the small results of my service with the fruit given to the apostles at Pentecost, I could not but own that I did not know the Holy Spirit in the fulness of His power.
THERE is a great battle to-day over the use and control of the mind, not only in the world, but among the children of God.
1. The fact of a “war " declared by Paul.
First note the fact that the Apostle declares that there is. a “war” in which he is engaged. " My warfare ,” he says, “is not waged according to the flesh.” This is in accord with his statements in other parts of his writings.
2. The battle for the mind described.
We see there is an aspect of the war described in this passage which has to do with the mind . “Thereby can I overthrow the reasonings of the disputer.” In verse 4 (A.V.) we read of a “pulling down of strongholds “. The Apostle seems to infer that the mind is a “stronghold” which has to be pulled down, and every rebel thought in it made captive. A “stronghold” is generally held by an enemy , and truly there is an enemy holding the stronghold of the mind, according to 2 Cor. 4. 4, where it says that the “god of this world” (age) has “blinded the minds of them which believe not”.
3. The condition of the mind by nature.
In various parts of the Pauline epistles we can gather very clearly the state of mind, when held by the enemy as a stronghold. It is described in some cases as a " reprobate mind " (Rom. 1. 28), a " blinded mind " (2 Cor. 3. 14), a darkened mind, causing men to walk in the " vanity of their minds " (Eph. 4.17-19), intruding into things which the mind cannot fathom, “vainly puffed up” by a " fleshly mind " (Col. 2. 18).
In Rom. 8.7, the Apostle says, “The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (A.V.). This is confirmed in Col. 1. 21, where those who are unregenerated are described as “enemies” in the " mind “, and therefore alienated from God. We therefore clearly see how, in the natural man, the mind is “darkened”, “puffed up” by the flesh, empty and vain in its thoughts, carnal because governed by the flesh, and in all its activities-whether apparently “good” or visibly “bad”-at enmity with God.
4. The unregenerate mind the stronghold of Satan.
The stronghold of the mind of man is therefore the strategic centre of the “war” with the “god of this age”, because it is primarily through the mind that he holds his captives in his power, and through the mind of those captives transmits his -
(1) Poison into the minds of others, and his
(2) Plans and schemes for arousing those souls to active rebellion against God.
The mind of the Christian is also the strategic centre of the “war on the saints” which Satan wages with ceaseless and fiendish skill. And for this reason the mind is the vehicle for the Spirit of God , dwelling in the spirit of the believer, to transmit to others the truth of God, which alone can remove the deceptions of Satan which fill the minds of all who are in the darkness of nature.
If the Holy Spirit is dwelling in the regenerate spirit have you considered the question of His outlet ? If it were only by speech you would be an oracle! But there are no “oracles” on earth now. The " oracles of God " are the Scriptures. The Word of God is being displaced not only by the Higher Critics, but by many of God’s own people by their taking supernatural” revelations” as being of equal authority with the written Scriptures. There are wrecked lives because they have turned from the Word of God to what they call direct revelation. There is a direct revelation by God the Holy Ghost illuminating the Word of God, and putting it into the spirit, but not apart from the Scriptures.
5. The Holy Spirit and the mind of the believer.
If the mind is the vehicle of the Spirit it is absolutely necessary that the Spirit of God should have full possession of it, with every “rebellious thought” brought into captivity to Christ. The Holy Spirit, dwelling in the spirit, needs the mind as a channel for expression, but it may be so blocked up, and filled with other things that He is unable to transmit all He desires to do. A “blocked” mind means the spirit unexpressed, and a spirit unexpressed is a stoppage of the outflow of the Spirit of God to others.
6. The mind of the Christian not fully delivered.
This explains why numbers of God’s children are unable to hold the truth of God which they hear, or to apply it to their lives, or express it to others. The mind has never been fully delivered from the grip of the enemy . Shall I put it crudely, and say that many get new “hearts”, but they keep their old “heads!” They do not realize that unless the hold of the adversary, which he has through the fallen nature of man, is removed from the mind, he has a position of vantage in the life of the believer, for attack and for hindrance in active service . How many there are who have “minds” that never “think a thing out”.
Devoted children of God, with hearts full of love, but “minds " full of all kinds of mixture-minds that have not been renewed and delivered from the interference of the enemy. Consequently they have a strange lack of spiritual perception. They may get “flashes of light”, and follow the “flash” -which often like a will-o’-the-wisp leads them astray-but they are not intelligent in their spiritual vision. They do not know that God is able, not only to deliver the mind from the enemy’s grip but also to renew it, so that it becomes as clear as crystal, with “every rebellious thought brought into captivity."
We have seen that one reason why the liberation of the mind is so important is because it is the vehicle of the spirit. Has it never struck you how extraordinary it is that the children of God can hear so much, and express so little? If you will ask one and the other to intelligently transmit something of what they have heard, they cannot do it. They have listened to volumes of truth for years, and yet they have no power to transmit, and help a soul in need. And many of these hearers will tell you that they have received a Baptism of the Spirit! The reason for this lies in the unrenewed mind . They may truly have received the Holy Spirit, but speaking reverently, He is “locked up” in the spirit, and cannot get through the blocked channel of the mind. One reason is that many children of God do not soak themselves, so to speak, in God’s thoughts. They think that to read a text in the morning is enough, and so they do not get the mind fully renewed. All the working of the old mind is emnity against God, and that is why you find people prejudiced over truth. Whenever you find a man prejudiced over some truth he does not understand, it always means that there is some activity of the old mind. The mind is like a seed plot. We do not realize what we are taking in, or sowing in the ground for future use. If you only make a remark about some person you have sown a seed , and if it is a critical thought, it is there ready to blaze into a “prejudice” at the first opportunity.
All this is so true that it is easy to see now why the Apostle describes the “mind” as a stronghold which has to be taken for Christ, and brought into subjection to Him. It may not have occurred to us that much which we have looked upon as “natural” disability in the use of our minds is to some extent the work of the enemy, who pours into the mind which has never been fully taken out of his power, his own visions, thoughts, ideas and ways.
7. The need of the mind to be fully renewed.
Now the question is, how can the mind become fully renewed, for if we are children of God, by the very entry of the truth of God, there has been a partial renewal. Conversion itself is described in the Bible as, in the first instance, a " change of mind .” This is the meaning of the word “repent."
Repentance is “to recover one’s senses” and come to a “right understanding.” So repentance describes on the one hand first a “change of mind”, to be accompanied by a change of heart.
8. The Cross the place of deliverance.
But for full renewal of the mind we have to go to the Cross, and learn its message that “our old man was crucified” with Christ. This is inclusive of the old carnal, darkened, fleshly mind. This comes out clearly in the words of Eph. 4.22-23, as following the Apostle’s description of the darkened and empty mind in verse 17 and 18. The “old man” crucified is here bidden to be “put off” by the believer so that he may be " renewed in the spirit of his mind. " The way of renewal, therefore, is VIA CALVARY.
The first need is the knowledge of the state of mind by nature, and that a “change of mind” at conversion does not go deep enough to deliver the soul from the power of the enemy in his thought life, and mental activities.
Then there must be a deliberate and definite “putting off” of the “old man” in the aspect of the old carnal mind, for the bringing captive to Christ of every thought. What is wanted, then, is to recognize that the un-renewed mind is part of the old creation that has to be put off at the Cross. Remember that God does just what you trust Him to do. We need to realize that what God wants is even a “cold-blooded” act of faith, as the believer says “I trust Thee to do this.” We would like Him to do the whole work at once, but He has planned that we depend upon Him step by step for everything. Some of you have come to understand your position of being crucified with Christ upon the Cross. The Holy Spirit will now take you into the details of all that this means. He may throw light on the “circumference” to show where the old life is lodged, so that it may be dealt with. When Christ is your life, Christ is enthroned at the center. That new Center life ( Christ at the center) has to be worked out as you hold the position perpetually, “crucified."
Then the Holy Spirit will throw the light upon every part of the circumference that is as yet un-dealt with. To-day we are dealing with the mind. Here you need to say “Lord I trust Thee to give me a renewed mind, and I agree to part with the old one.” When someone speaks to you of another in a manner likely to cause a bias in your mind you say, “Please don’t. I have not met the person. I should like to meet him without any preconceived ideas about him.” But supposing you to-day hand this old mind to the Cross, and trust God to give you a new one, do you think the enemy will give up his ground without a fight? Do you think that every “rebellious thought” is going to be brought into subjection easily? This brings us to the question of
9. The mind and its practical liberation.
We must recognize that the “mind” continues to be the strategic battle ground, even when we have claimed the deliverance of Calvary. We must know how the liberation of the mind has to be actually worked out, and for this the Spirit of God needs our active co-operation. The believer needs to recognize that the attacks of the emissaries of Satan are primarily directed at the mind . Notice how Paul realizes this, and describes the mind of the Christian as the strategic battle ground for the enemy. " I fear,” he writes to the Corinthians, " lest by any means … your minds should be corrupted …”, and then he tells them how this would come about. “If he that cometh preacheth another Jesus … or if ye receive another spirit,” or “another Gospel " (2 Cor. 11.3-4, A.V.). So the danger of the Christian is false teaching getting into the mind , and diverting him from the simple Gospel of Christ. It is to this end, that Satan transforms himself into an Angel of Light.
How few realize that Satan can give spurious light to the mind, even light about a “Jesus” who is not the Lord, and minister “another spirit” which is not the Holy Spirit, and through his instruments preach a “gospel” which is not the Gospel of the grace of God.
The danger which the Apostle wrote about to the Corinthians is increased to-day a thousand-fold, because of the psychic forces that are at work in the world. Because, too, of the tremendous emphasis upon, and development of the mental life at the present time, and because the enemy is actively at work seeking to break down the mental powers of God’s children through the strain of the conflict of life. There are grave dangers all about us from counterfeit guidance, counterfeit visions and counterfeit plans, all coming from the enemy’s work upon the mind . Never was there a time when believers so needed the “helmet of salvation” to cover their heads from the foe. The air is full of the suggestions of the prince of the “power of the air”, flashing thoughts and ideas into the minds of men.
Take what is called the “Higher Criticism.” Picture a man, who is without the knowledge of the new birth through the Cross of Christ, reading in his study. Wonderful “thoughts” which come into his mind, are given out as the result of his own thinking, and the world marvels at the “brilliance” of this scholar. Alas, the “brilliance” of a mind which the Word of God declares is blinded by the god of this age , and energized by the “spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience,” is really darkness in the sight of God . What the un-renewed mind is capable of producing under the energizing of the spirits of Satan can be seen, for example in the Text Book of Christian Science, where words seem to be spun out as a spider spins his web, as empty as the gossamer threads composing it.
The dangerous output of “minds” thus wrought upon by the prince of the power of the air, will increase as the dispensation hastens to its close, and the children of God will be caught in the meshes of these “fantasies” unless they have their own minds renewed, and kept sober by the truth of God.
They need in the face of these dangers, to guard against overwork, which may bring about overstrain of the mind, making them incapable of sober judgment.
10. The practical way of victory.
How is the mind of the child of God to be actually set free from the enemy’s control and renewed by the Spirit of God? We have seen that there is deliverance via Calvary , but there is also a practical line of action on the part of the believer. The first question to be faced is one concerning control.
There may be a wrong thought about this which must not be overlooked. You are quite aware that your mind is out of your control, and you have been praying that God would “control” it independently of you. But all in vain. Sometimes your mind is full of wandering thoughts, and your imagination inflamed or it is heavy, passive or sluggish and unusable. It is practically out of your own control, and is uncontrolled by God . What is the reason? You may never have taken your “mind” out of the control of the enemy (2 Cor. 4. 4), and deliberately handed it to the death of the Cross, and trusted God to give you a new mind. Numbers of God’s people know that their minds are neither under God’s control nor their own. And it is often because the enemy has put a thought in their minds which has laid hold of the mind until it is mastered by it. Whenever you find” a person who can only talk of " one thing " it is best to shun them. It always tells the tale that the mind of that one is not under control.
If God is controlling your thoughts and mind, you can choose what you think and when you will speak. But if you say, “If I don’t speak what is in my mind at once I shall lose it,” then you had better “lose it.” How many pour upon you their “thinks” and never heed what effect it will have upon you. Oh how we all need some sober light upon the realm of the mind. Recently a letter came to me in which I was told of a Christian man who said, “My wife was a most beautiful Christian. But suddenly the thought was suggested in the middle of the night that she had committed the unpardonable sin and now she is in a mental home and I can do nothing, and my little children are without their mother.” The minister said to the poor man that it seemed to be of the enemy, so they knelt down and the minister asked that if Satan had shot this thing into the mind of the wife, the Lord would prove it to the husband, through the victory of Calvary. Praise God, within a fortnight she was back in her home.
11. The new mind and its characteristics.
When the mind is renewed, the Spirit of God fulfils the promise of God, where He says, “I will put my laws in their hearts, and in their minds will I write them " (Heb. 10.16). Thus we obtain the “mind” of Christ (1 Cor. 2.16). What that “mind” is we read in Phil. 2.5-8. The practical life is changed only so far as we are “transformed” by the “renewing” of the " mind.” Christ’s “mind” was to obey God, even unto the death of the Cross. That “mind” in us becomes armor. “Arm yourselves with the same mind " (1 Pet. 4.1), i.e., Christ’s mind towards the Cross. " Christ suffered ,” we say, and as our minds dwell upon His sufferings, and the Holy Spirit shows us the separation from sin which fellowship with Him brings about, we too choose to suffer, and we are “armed” by having His mind. Thus the new mind becomes “stayed upon God,” instead of being tossed about by distracting thoughts. And a mind stayed on God means perfect peace.
12. The “new mind” as the vehicle of the Holy Spirit.
In Eph. 1.18, we read, “The eyes of your understanding” being “filled with light.” Here is the mind illumined by the Spirit. It is the vehicle of light. You see with the mind, you feel with the spirit. David said, “My spirit made diligent search.” The mind is filled with light from God in the spirit, illuminating the mind. This brings into action the perceptive faculty of the mind, whereby the believer is able to spiritually discern spiritual things. The various marginal readings of 1 Cor. 2.13, show the new mind in use. It is able to “discriminate”, " examine,” “combine,” “compare” and “explain” spiritual things which the “natural” man knows nothing about.
The perceptive faculty of the mind renewed by the Spirit of God enables us more clearly to know how to prove the good and acceptable will of God “If a man walketh in the day he stumbleth not,” said the Lord. In broad daylight a man does not need to fall over stones in his path before he sees them. And so it is spiritually. With a new mind filled with light by the Spirit, the believer sees the path wherein he should walk, and discerns the will of God clearly without the confusion and perplexities of the partially renewed mind.
13. The guarding of the new mind.
There is no part of the renewed believer which does not require guarding. This is especially true of the mind which has been renewed. First there is a “girding” up of the “loins of the mind” (1 Pet. 1.13), which is necessary. This means that you must never let the mind become “slack”, or careless in its thinking, or it will soon fall a prey to the watching enemy. The “mind” should never be idle, or without “grist for the mill!” It must be active if it is in a normal condition. The Apostle also bids the believer see that he does not admit an “anxious” thought (Phil. 4.6), but at once to transmit any that come, to God. If he does this, the “peace of God” will garrison his mind, and keep it in peace. But he must do more, he must give the mind work to do , and let it have true, honest, just, pure and lovely things to “think” about (see Phil. 4. 8).
Then again, the believer with the new mind must “think soberly” (Rom. 12. 3) especially about himself. He must avoid dwelling on “high things” (Rom. 12.16), and in the path of soberness take no step which is not the outcome of deliberate judgment and decision. Every “thought” led captive, means the deliberate weighing of every word and action in the light of God. Thus we shall be able to walk with God in these days of peril, and be sober when others are carried away by the spurious workings of the enemy.
Do not follow or trust what we may describe as “flashes” of light to the mind, because the Holy Ghost in your spirit works out into the mind His light in calm, intelligent, deliberate, illumination from within. Because of the dangers to-day we cannot trust anything that comes from without . It is not that these “flashes” are necessarily wrong, but that you cannot trust them. Neither can anything said on the impulse of the moment be trusted.
Supposing a thought comes, it should be turned over and over and pondered over in the presence of God. “Am I to take this thought as from Thee, if so please bring it back to me again and again, and shew me.” Thus you will learn to walk carefully or accurately in the will of God. We need to be encased in the armor of Christ. God dwelling in our spirit, pouring the light into our mind, according to His Written Word, will enable us to carefully and prayerfully walk with Him.
Dr. Mabie says in one of his books: “in the thought of’ Scripture the reconciling death, and ressurection, have always been taken together. They are inseparable parts of a real Unity-TWIN PARTS OF ONE FACT”. This is a very clear statement and true, but in experience, and in teaching, the danger lies in not giving the ’twin parts’ equal balance. This affects the practical results in the life, for you cannot have the ‘positive’ life-power without the negative death-application. If there is too much ’negative’, that is death-then there is too little ‘positive’ in the practical life.
If you overemphasize the ‘positive’, the ’life’ of the resurrection-then you do not get sufficient ’negative’ of the death-application to deal with the old-Adam life, which is in the way of the new-creation, and has to be dealt with by the ‘death’ making room for the Christ-life. Therefore the two should have equal emphasis, and, so to speak, run together in the Christian life-death and life, Calvary and the resurrection-’twin parts of one fact’.
Let me repeat again: In the experience of the believer, it is exactly in proportion to the experimental apprehension, and co-working of the Spirit of God in applying the ’negative’ side of ‘death with Christ’, that he gets the actual, experimental, and ‘positive’ impartation of the power of the resurrection. The two sides of these truths should evenly run together. It is for lack of seeing this that there are so many one-sided Christians. They are either so ’negative’, by dwelling much on the ‘death’ side, that they have no activity of life; or, they are so anxious to avoid the ’negative’-the over-emphasis on ‘death’-that they dwell too much upon the ‘positive’ side of life, and in experience are in danger of calling the old life of nature, the life of the resurrection.
We have need of the balance, so as to obtain a real impartation of the life of God. But it is so ‘human’ to go to extremes! It is only as we know the danger, and rely upon God to guard us, that we can be kept spiritually sober, and balanced in truth. When we are conscious of the difficulties of it on account of our human limitations, we are less dogmatic in our statements to others about ourselves and our ‘views’. We can always be sure of all that is plainly written in the Word of God, but not always so sure that we personally have the full knowledge of the meaning of His Word.
Now let us turn again to Romans 6 and see in verses I 0 and I I how it gives not only what we may call the death-side of the Cross, but the key to the life-side of our union with Christ in His resurrection. “He died once, and once only, unto sin; but He lives [for ever] unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but living unto God IN CHRIST JESUS.’’ In the three words “IN Christ Jesus” we have the key to the life of union with the Risen Lord. We have died with Christ on the Cross, so that we may ’live unto God’ in another sphere altogether, ‘IN Christ Jesus’.
If you look at verse 13 it reads: “Give yourselves to God, as being restored to life from the dead, and your members to His service as instruments. . . .” Now what does it mean to be “in Christ Jesus” on the resurrection side of the Cross? Turn to Romans 7: 4; “You … were made dead to the Law, by [union with] the body of Christ; that you might be married to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead”. In the margin of Schofield’s Bible the word is ‘joined’. ‘Dead’ is the ,negative’ side of the truth of death; ‘joined’ to the Risen Lord is the ‘positive’ side of the truth. Twin parts of one fact. Therefore there is no impartation of His Risen life apart from Himself Moreover the ‘joining’ is a joining of spirit.
‘He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit’ (I Corinthians 6: 17)not one soul. Therefore the ’negative’ side of death with Christ means practically a breaking away, or severing, or cutting away, of that which prevents the joining of your spirit to the Risen Christ. The experimental outcome of the Cross is really a releasing of the spirit. It was held, so to speak, in the grip of the soul and of the ‘flesh’. It was so entangled in the life of nature that it could not be fully joined to Him Who is a quickening Spirit. But how is the ‘cutting away’ done? How does the Spirit of God apply the Cross, and bring about the death-severance whereby the spirit is free to be joined to Christ?
This we find in Hebrews 4: 12- “The Word of God liveth and worketh, and is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. . . .” Here we have a dividing and something that is immaterial and intangible. The ‘Word’ therefore is a spiritual weapon, acting like a sword in the spiritual sphere-as a sword cuts in the material realm-and actually ‘dividing’ immaterial things. That part of the Word that does this is the Word of the Cross, ‘dividing’ soul from spirit, first by giving the believer the distinctions between the two, and secondly, severing the two as the believer yields to the operation of the ‘Word of the Cross’ telling of the death with Christ.
It also says that the ‘Word’ discerns and reveals the thoughts, because “all things are naked and opened in the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do”. Notice that it is the Lord Himself using the sword to cut away the old lifeHim, with Whom we have to do. He alone knows how to wield the ‘sword of the Spirit’, which will ‘cut’ like a knife, so that the spirit is severed or ‘disentangled’, as an old writer says, “from the embrace of the soul”!
This is all psychologically and experimentally true. In Dr. Andrew Murray’s “Spirit of Christ”, he gives in the Appendix a very clear explanation of the dividing of soul and spirit which has to be done in the believer. He explains how man fell from the ‘spirit’ dominating his whole being, into the soul, and then again how the soul sank down into the flesh, so that at last God said of man “He is become flesh”. He descended from spirit to soul, and from soul to ‘flesh’. The spirit of man, says Dr. Murray, is that in us which is capable of knowing God-spirit-consciousness. The soul is the seat of the self-consciousness, and the body the seat of sense consciousness. An understanding of simple Bible psychology is necessary for any apprehension of the full life of victory through the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is more to be dealt with in us than what we call ‘sin’, and more than ‘sin’ which prevents our full knowledge of God.
Now to know in real experience the life side of the Cross, we must know not only death to sin, but the Word of the Cross severing between ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’, so that the spirit is liberated to be joined to the Risen Lord. Then through the channel of your spirit, “joined to the Lord one spirit”, the quickening life of Him Who is a quickening Spirit comes into the ‘soul’ in resurrection power. For the ‘soul’ is not destroyed, nor is the individuality of the believer destroyed. We do not become automatons, but the ‘soul’-the personality-should be animated from the spirit, instead of from the lower realm of the life of nature. We may say the same words, perform the same acts, but with a different source of animating life at the back of them.
When the spirit is thus ‘one spirit’ with the Risen Lord, it is via the spirit, into the mind, we experience the leadings of the Spirit, and intimate knowledge of the personal Christ. It is through our spirits joined to Him by the Holy Spirit, that we ‘know’ Him personally-for the whole purpose of the truth is that we should KNOW Him, as well as the power of His resurrection.
Now turn to Colossians 2:6-7 for more light on the meaning of the words, “In Christ Jesus”. “As, therefore, you first received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” When we first ‘received’ Christ, by a simple act of faith, we were put into Him by the operation of the spirit of God. Christ is in us, and our spirits are joined to Him as the Risen One, but we are also to abide ‘In Him’ as a sphere in which we are to walk day by day. As we began, so we are to continue-simply trusting and relying upon Him, and abiding IN Him. The life side of the Cross means to be ‘alive’ to God-‘In Christ Jesus’
“Having in Him your root,” continues the Apostle. You cannot be ‘rooted’ in one place to-day, and in another place the next. Therefore see to your roots. “Having in Him your root.” “Thou bearest not the root, but the root thee”! “And in Him the foundation whereon you are continually built up, persevering steadfastly in your faith. . . .” This clearly shows the need of our understanding the Cross as the basic position from which we must never be moved. It is into His death that we are to be rooted. We cannot ever pass on into a life where we get past the Cross, or advance to any goal, leaving the Cross behind. To do so is like a ’tree’ refusing to ‘root’ itself into the ground. We are to reckon ourselves ‘dead indeed unto sin’ and living unto God, but it is ‘IN CHRIST JESUS’. ‘In Him’ we must be ‘rooted’, and ‘in Him’ have our ‘foundation’, whereon we are continually to be built up; i.e., we must ever be striking our roots deeper into His death.
Let us go back just here to John 3: 16, and see how the being ‘In Christ Jesus’ began at the initial stage of our new life. The words read, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth into Him” should have life. Why the translators of the Bible into English have used the word ‘on’ instead of ‘into’, I do not know. We do not merely believe ‘on’ Christ, but we believe into Him. Newberry says, that the word ‘into’ in the original has in it the thought of motion and thus is very suggestive, i.e., as you ‘believe into’ Christ, you are taken in by the coaction of the Holy Spirit. And Calvary is the place where this is done.
The Lord Christ preached His own Cross at the beginning of His ministry. He told Nicodemus of the necessity of the new birth and told him of His forthcoming death that sinners might have life. He said in John 3: 14,15, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth into Him should … have eternal life”. We are put ‘into’ Him in His death, and then ‘into’ Him in His life, on the resurrection side of the Cross, “having in Him your root”! Therefore “persevere steadfastly in your faith . . .” i.e., when you first received Christ Jesus the Lord, you believed into Him, now stay in Him, be rooted in Him, have your foundation in Him, have all your spirit life built up in Him.
Now turn to Colossians 2: 9- 1 1. “IN Him dwells all the fulness”! It is as we abide in Him we get the ‘fulness’ of the Spirit. You say, “Oh, I want to be filled with the fulness of God”! Yes, but you can only hold, shall we say, a ’teacup’ full! Paul puts it quite another way-“In Him you have your fulness”! You have died with Him, now joined in spirit to Him, abide in Him, and you are in an ocean of life. “In Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead in bodily form, and in Him you have your fulness; for He is the Head of all Principalities and Powers. In Him, also, you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, even the off-casting of the whole body of the flesh.” The ‘flesh’ cannot be taken ‘into Him’. It must be ‘cast off’. “For with Him you were buried in your baptism [into death], wherein also you were made partakers of His resurrection, through the faith wrought in you by God, Who raised Him from the dead.” Here again are the ’twin parts of one fact’.
The severing work of the Cross takes place as we abide in Him; the cutting off of the ‘flesh’, even the “off-casting of the whole body of the flesh” takes place as we abide in Him. It is a ‘circumcision’ which is done without human hands, for it is wrought by the Holy Ghost as the believer consents, and trusts Him, to carry out in him the full work of the Cross of Christ. It is the Spirit of God who baptizes us into the death of Christ, and gives the believer the power to cast off all the ‘body of the flesh’, and to carry this out in detail, so that he may live according to God in the Spirit.
Now let us see two or three verses for the practical outworking in the life. “Whosoever, then, is in Christ, is a new creation; his old being has passed away, and behold, all has become new” (2 Corinthians 5: 17). “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision is anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Galatians 6: 15)- ‘In Christ’ nothing is made to depend upon any external thing. ‘In Christ Jesus’ nothing avails, nothing is of any use, nothing is of any account, but a new creation. Going into the sphere of Christ, we leave outside the ‘old’. Abiding in Him, we may conform to the externalities of religious things, but you do not rely upon them, or place undue emphasis upon them, or ever allow them to become a cause of division between you and other children of God. Thus you will never find a child of God that you cannot get into spirit touch with, for you will always recognize that you have one life in the Lord.
Now turn to Ephesians 2: 4-6. “God Who is rich in mercy, because of the great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sin, called us to share the life of Christ…. And in Christ Jesus, He raised us up with Him from the dead and seated us with Him in the heavens.” In Christ is our root and our foundation, from which we must never move, but here we see the outcome of that death position. joined to Him in spirit we are seated with Him in spirit ‘in the heavens’. “Crucified with Him,” we are called to share His life, “for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3: 3)Resurrection power is uplifting power.
Joined to the Risen One it can lift your spirit up, and keep it ‘far above all’ in Christ, however deeply it may have been ‘down’ under the bondage of the flesh, or mingled with the life of nature of the soul-we are ‘seated with Him in the heavens’ by union with Him Who on His ascension ‘sat down’. joined to Him, He holds us as we abide and rest in Him.
Now finally as to the ’life-side of the Cross’ in service. Let us turn to the sixth chapter of Ephesians, verse 10. It is to those who are ‘in Christ’ as set forth in the early chapters of the Epistle, that the Apostle now opens up spiritual service and warfare. He begins this closing passage, this summing up of the life he had been describing, with the word ‘Finally’. “Finally … let your hearts be strengthened in the Lord, and in the conquering power of His might. . . .” The Lord Christ, Paul said in chapter one, is above the Principalities and the Powers. He is not under them, and the believer is also seated with Him ‘far above’. Now, let such a one be strengthened in the Lord, be confident, be sure, know for certain the position of victory, and be strong in the conquering power of His might.
Also, in this place of assured victory, “Put on the whole armour of God” (verse 11). You know your position, now be established there, and put on the armour of God, “that you may be able to stand”. But you were ‘seated’ a moment ago! Yes, you cannot ‘fight’ external foes if you have a conflict within! You must be ‘sitting down’ inside! If you lose your inward peace you are at the mercy of the devil. For conquering warfare the believer must have the inward calm of God, and be strengthened, stablished, rooted in Him. Now ‘put on the armour’ that you may be able to stand. And why need we ‘stand’? Because of ’the wiles of the devil’.
This is all his strategy, wiles, methods, planned to get you out of your victorious position. The wiles that you do not see are the most dangerous. They are planned against you from morning to night. You say that you do not want to be thinking about ’evil spirits’ all the time? But they will he thinking of you. You are only called to think about them to the end that you may be on the alert in perpetual prayer. The knowledge that they are perpetually planning to ensnare you, drives you nearer to God in prayer that their wiles do not succeed. As you do this your eyes will be opened to see their wiles, and you will keep steady and quiet when you discern them at work upsetting things in your home, to draw you out of your place in God.
“Stand firm against the wiles of the devil,for the adversaries with whom we wrestle are not flesh and blood.” It is strange, in the face of this, how God’s people perpetually see only ‘flesh and blood’ as the cause of the conflict, and trouble in their lives. They will not recognize that there are spiritual foes. Or if they see some other cause than the flesh and blood, at the back of circumstantial troubles, they put all down to the ‘will of God’. By some means or other, they will ignore the supernatural powers of evil. In the one case they have friction with the ones who injure them, or in the latter they submit, as they think, to the ‘will of God’, and become actual victims of the forces of Satan attacking and seeking to injure every child of God. They do not know how to discern between what is really of God, and what is of Satan.
The Apostle says, our real adversaries are not flesh and blood. These spiritual foes are in the aerial heavens. They roam in the air around our planet, seeking to do all the evil that they can. It is very manifest just now in Britain-not to speak of other lands. These powers are working upon the people in an intensified form, and arousing the fallen Adam in them. The wave of Spiritism has much to do with it. It is not possible to have thousands of people communicating with demons, under the deception of speaking with their dead relatives, without these demons influencing the atmosphere of the whole country.
Our adversaries are not flesh and blood, but they are princes -“The Principalities, and the Powers, and the Sovereigns of this present darkness”. We have three hierarchic ranks of Satan’s governmental powers described here. The ‘Princes’ set over ‘Principalities’, the ‘Powers’ of those who are able to use the resources of the air; and the ‘Sovereigns’-the kings or rulers, governing ’this present darkness’. Then last and lowest in rank, are the multitudes of ‘spirits of evil in the heavens’ who carry out the behests of Satan their chief and the other ‘rulers’ of their various spheres.
In Daniel 10 the veil is lifted, and we are told about a ‘Prince of Persia’and a’Prince of Grecia’ (Daniel 10 13, 2o), withstanding the heavenly messengers to Daniel. Is there not a ‘Prince of England’ and a ‘Prince of France’? In every land do not God’s people wrestle against the ‘Princes’ of the Satanic forces?
Then what about the ‘Powers’ wielding for Satan the forces of the air? What resources they have to carry out their plans! We are only in this century learning about wireless telegraphy, and electricity, but the satanic ‘Prince of this World’ knew about them-and other ‘powers’ yet unknown to uscenturies ago. This is why ’lies’ spread like poisoned gas, and ’truth’ has to fight its way. This is why the Bolshevik spirit in Russia is able so quickly to reach Wales and England, and to lay hold of men and inspire them with delusions which, if allowed their way, will wreck others and themselves. There are ‘waves’ of satanic delusions sent forth by the ‘Powers’ in the invisible realm, like a wave of electric currents, invisibly spreading, and drawing people under its power.
Then there are the ‘Sovereigns’ of the ‘darkness’. The Princes lead the fight like generals (Daniel 10: 13), the ‘Powers’ wield the forces of the air, but the ‘Kings’ or rulers govern the darkness. Their work is to plan how to keep people in the dark; to prevent truth and light reaching them-in brief, not only to frustrate the Gospel but to hinder truth and all light that comes from truth, in every way they can. The ‘spirits of evil’ are the multitudinous hosts of demons swarming about, and carrying out the personal attacks on individuals, for the fulfilling of the world-plans of their Prince.
The standing against the wiles of these, as described in Ephesians 6: 11, is the prelude to the aggressive war against them. The believer ‘strong in the Lord’, on the defensive against the wiles, is called to the aggressive, and by the wielding of the weapon of Christ’s victory over them at Calvary, these foes can all be dislodged and driven from their strongholds, and the plans of their chiefs be frustrated, and broken up. The Apostle says this plainly, and tell us how. “Wherefore,” he writes, “take up with you to the battle the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand (Gr. resist) them in the evil day, and HAVING OVERTHROWN THEM ALL, TO STAND UNSHAKEN”. This clearly depicts an aggressive advance, with the sure and certain fact that they can be ‘overthrown’, and by the Lord’s children in union with Him. There are ’evil days’, when the ‘princes’ and ‘powers’ and the ‘rulers of the darkness’, come and besiege, say for instance, your church.
Do not only stand on the defensive and protect yourself, but looking not at ‘flesh and blood’, go up to that battle with the hosts of darkness , strong in the Lordanchored in Him with the eternal calm of God centred in your being-and ,overthrow’ the invisible hosts by the weapon of faith and prayer. Remember God is on the Throne, and when you are centred there in Him, you partake of His strength, ‘rooted and fixed in God’. Strong ‘in the Lord’, you can safely take the aggressive against principalities and powers, and go up to the battle with confidence, because your ‘defensive’ is sure.
“Having overthrown them all” writes the Apostle, you can then ‘stand unshaken’. So there is a ‘battle’-a specific onslaught upon you, or upon the church, described as ’the evil day’-and there is an ‘overthrow’ of that specific attack of the enemy, and then a standing back in God in blessed victory. All this is part of the believer’s experience on the ’life-side of the Cross’. He is not only ‘joined to the Lord one Spirit’ for sharing in His resurrection life, and for victory over sin and the ‘flesh’, but he is joined to Him, to be sent forth by Him to ‘overthrow’ the forces of darkness seeking to ‘overthrow’ the church of God, and to frustrate or delay the Lord’s appearing.
The great need of to-day is that the Lord’s children should apprehend the call to battle, and rise up in His strength to face the foe. It is not enough to simply ’endure’ -crying out “Oh Lord, how long?” The Lord must have those who work with Him to ‘overthrow’ in glorious victory all the hosts of Satan, hindering his plans, until as victors they are caught away to meet the Lord. Twos and threes meeting together in prayer, can become strategic centres for the overthrow of Satan’s onslaughts on the people, and the work of God. If they only know how to ‘pray’ against the foe! If they only know how to take their stand in God, and wield the weapon of Calvary’s victory!
God can do such a work in us by His Spirit, that all that He commands us to do will come about naturally, and not because we feel we ought to do it. To make up our mind to praise God is good, but it is very much better to be so filled with the Holy Spirit that you cannot help praising! What God wants out of us He will first put in. The secret of power for living and service is to go to the Cross and get rid of the obstacles to the outflow of the spirit of God, and then ask God for the new life that will bring forth the new fruit.
I often hear of things God's children say and do which most grieve Him - and it seems hopeless to speak to them about it. The best thing is to ask God to put a new life and new spirit into them so that they will not do these things.
If you have a little child and are constantly saying, " You must not, you must not," you will soon crush the personality of that child. You need to show him how to have a new life within, so that he will want to do what is right. God does not expect to get out of us one thing but what He has put into us! Do let us toil, dear fellow-workers, to lead His children into a life, and then let that Life manifest itself through their personalities. God does not want us to be all of the same pattern. He will express Himself through each individual in a different way. Just as there are not two faces alike, so He has not made two of us alike in any way, and we must take care that we do not try to mould ourselves or others after the pattern of any other human being.
IT is very important to understand clearly the stage of experience depicted in the following pages, for truth out of place can be poison. The title of the book is a sufficient explanation, if it is apprehended, but it may be necessary to emphasize in still plainer language than the title expresses, the fact that conformity to death is the climax of— not the way to — the " Risen Life “, i.e., the life of union with the Risen Lord on the heavenly side of the Cross.
Conformity to death, and bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, is quite another aspect of the Cross, to that given in the sixth of Romans. The believer’s break with sin, through apprehending the death to sin of Christ as the Representative Man, is to be definite and decisive. Based on God’s fact of the meaning of Calvary declared in Romans 6 : 6, the believer is to reckon himself dead — not dying— to sin, counting upon the Spirit of God to make the reckoning true. Standing on the basis of " dead to sin “, the believer finds the mastery of sbi broken, and " living to God " in Christ Jesus he is a " new creation " (2 Corinthians 5: 17). Joined to the Lord, he is K one spirit " with Him — his life is hid " with Christ in God “.
But now comes the question of the manifestation of that hidden life — the life of Jesus — how is it to be lived? Here the messages in the following pages will meet the need. Standing stedfastly on the basis of Romans 6’ 6, 11, etc., as the bed-rock fact in relation to sin, the believer whose life is hidden with Christ in God, now is able to bear the " fellowship of Christ’s sufferings “, and be made conformable to His death, so that the life in union with the Risen Lord may be manifested in the body, and through the body, to others— " death " working in us, and " life in you " {2 Corinthians 4: 12),
The need for both of these aspects of the Cross to be appre- hended clearly, in their right order, by the Lord’s children,
6
THE CLIMAX OF THE RISEN LIFE
is very great, for if the believer imagines himself in the path of ‘* conformity to death ** when he lias not first apprehended the death to sin, he will never obtain victory over sin, nor have any note of victory in his life, and, again, if the believer who rejoicingly knows the emancipation of Romans 6, from sin as a master, does not sec the succeeding stage of conformity to death for life-giving and fruit-bearing service, he is in danger of being hard and unbroken in exterior, and of failing to manifest the broken and contrite spirit so precious to God.
It is necessary, also, to emphasize; not only the need of the believer’s knowing the two stages, i.e., the death to sin of Romans 6, and conformity to death of Philippians 3:10, but that they both should be continuous at one and the same time, in every obedient child of God. The bed-rock basis of death to sin needing the persistent " reckoning “, must never be departed from, or the apprehension of Romans 6, looked upon simply as a past land-mark in the spiritual life. If this is done, sin in more subtle formSj will re-assert the mastery, without being called sin. The persistent standing on the bed-rock basis of death to sin alone enables the Spirit of God to reveal in deeper measure what is sin in the sight of God, so that in the power of the new life, the believer does not let sin reign in practice (Romans 6 : 12); and whilst standing on the basis, the acceptance of conformity to death alone permits the outflow of the life of Jesus through the mortal body, when “We which Hue, are alwqy delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh”. The two must go together ! In relation to sin, we reckon we are dead with Christ, and therefore " dead indeed unto sin “, and living unto God " in Christ Jesus *’; in relation to others, we accept the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings and the becoming conformable unto His death, so that life may how through us to a dying World,
Standing then, on the basis of Romans 6 — may the reader say Amen to the messages in the following pages, and follow in the steps of the Lamb of Calvary,