THE CONFLICT OF THESE TWO NATURES IN EVERY BELIEVER To admit the coexistence of these two diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive natures is to acknowledge the necessity of fiercest conflict. It is indeed the agelong conflict between Satan and Christ, with the believer’s inner life as the battlefield. It is self contesting Christ’s right…
There are two kinds of Christians, easily identified and clearly distinguished from each other. How can there be such a paradox? It is the question that must present itself to every thoughtful mind. The fountainhead of the Christian life is the same for all. Then how can two streams from it flow so widely…
It is a Life of Winsome Holiness Exodus 15:11 “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” 1 Peter 1:15-16 “But like as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; Because…
It is a Life of Devoted Separateness 1 Thessalonians 4:3 “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.” Hebrews 7:26 “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.” John 14:17 “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot…
It is a Life of Constant Growth into Christlikeness 2 Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.” There is nothing static in true spiritual experience. The…
It is a Life of Abiding Peace John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 16:33 “These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might…
The up and down line in the diagram is photographic. It is almost cruelly self-revealing. It visualizes the average church member. It is like a costly picture cheaply framed or an exquisite garment illy fitted. One look tells you that something is wrong, and no matter how often you look, it never seems right….
IT IS A LIFE LIVED ON GOD’S APPOINTED PLANE As God has never had but one plan for the life of man, and that is a spiritual one, He has never had but one plane on which He means man to live, and that is the plane of the spiritual. Life lived on the…
IT IS A LIFE FASHIONED ON GOD’s ORIGINAL PLAN (3) The human body becomes the habitation of the triune God on earth. The spiritual man apprehends the spiritual significance and sacredness of his body. Under the Holy Spirit’s illumination, he learns what it becomes through the new birth. 2 Corinthians 6:16“And what agreement hath…
Through this act of God in regeneration, the maladjustment within the believer’s human personality is remedied. A proper balance between the constituent parts is restored; the sovereignty of the spirit over the soul and body is revived. The human spirit is again the premier in the governmental affairs of the human being, and the…
In God’s original plan, the human personality was a unity. The human spirit, dominated and directed by the Holy Spirit, was supreme in authority over the soul and the body, so the Holy Spirit, through the channel of the human spirit, made and kept the whole being spiritual. As we have seen in chapter…
IT IS A LIFE FULFILLING GOD’S ETERNAL PURPOSE Before the world was created or man was made to inhabit it, God had a purpose that He intended to carry out through His Son. Ephesians 3:11 “According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 2 Timothy 1:9 “Who hath saved…
IT IS A LIFE PERFECTED BY GOD’S HOLY PRESENCE I hasten to this point because I would not have anyone think even for an instant that conformity to the image of Christ is affected by imitation of a pattern, no matter how perfect. Such conformity as the Bible speaks of is not wrought in…
IT IS A LIFE CONFORMED TO GOD’S PERFECT PATTERN (CON’T) But the perfection of His character did not consist so much in the negative quality of sinlessness as in the positive one of holiness—a holiness so rare, so wondrous, so unearthly that it compelled His Father to break the silence of heaven three times…
IT IS A LIFE CONFORMED TO GOD’S PERFECT PATTERN The purpose of the wondrous plan of salvation wrought out in the eternal counsels of the triune God before the world or man was made was the complete conformity of the penitent, believing sinner to the image of his perfect Savior. God laid the foundation…
IT IS A LIFE SAVED THROUGH GOD’S GRACIOUS PROVISION The salvation which God has provided for the sinner is a perfect salvation. It is without flaw. It provides for his past, present, and future. It covers every need of every part of his being under every circumstance. It relates him rightly to heaven and…
In a quiet Swiss village, God taught me valuable lessons about ascending to life’s highest plane. From my window in Grindelwald, I marveled at four towering, snowcapped peaks, feeling completely satisfied—until glimpses of hidden summits stirred a desire to climb higher. One day, a group set out on such a climb, following green-marked paths….
THE CONQUEST OF THE ENEMY In Ephesians 6:10-18 our Captain tells us that the power to stand against the enemy depends upon our position and upon our protection. Ephesians 6:10-11 “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye…
THE CAPTAIN OF THE HOST Satan ensnares some believers because they fail to realize his power and to recognize his tactics. But others make the equally fatal mistake of overestimating his power and overemphasis his activities. He is mighty, but there is One infinitely mightier. He is powerful, but there is One who is…
But the devil goes still further and presses on in an attack upon the individual members of Christ’s Body who have entered into real oneness with their Lord. He sends forth his fiery darts to carry depression of spirit, delusion of mind, distraction of heart, deflection of will, and distress of body. The human…
Against the corporate Body of Christ, Satan is working in two very distinct and definite ways at the present time: through degeneration and through division. First, he is sowing tares among the wheat. He is placing his emissaries in the pulpit and pews for the sole purpose of leavening the whole. He is mixing…
In the Garden of Gethsemane, we see the devil making his final attack upon the God-man by trying to drive a wedge between the Father and the Son. To accomplish this, he aimed his fiery darts at our Lord’s spirit, soul, and body. All the hosts of hell were united in that spiritual battle…
“In Christ” in the heavenlies is the believer’s promised land. This is his God-given inheritance promised even before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4, 11). “In Christ” in the heavenlies, every spiritual blessing is his possession by right (Ephesians 1:3). Through his identification with Christ, the believer has already entered into the heavenlies…
When Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, He went as Conqueror over the evil one and all his hosts. When God exalted Him to Lordship over the universe, He set Him at His own right hand far above all the principalities and powers that belonged to the kingdom of Satan and put them all under…
But the divine-human God-man can never be satisfied with negation if He died and rose again to separate us from sin. He ascended into heaven and was exalted to the throne that He might separate us unto the Lord. The work of the cross is to be perfected through the work of the throne….
The Believer Becomes “Alive Unto God” Having been born into God’s family as a child and into His Kingdom as a citizen, his whole life is now centered in the family and Kingdom interests. Having been accepted as Savior, united with as Head, and crowned Lord, Christ has become both the center and the…
The Believer Becomes Dead to the World Christ, as our sanctification, brings out a very radical reversal in the believer’s relationship to the world and in its relationship to the believer. The apostle Paul uses a very strong expression in stating it. Galatians 6:14 “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the…
The Believer Becomes Dead to Self The exact words are not in Scripture, but the thought is clearly there in the following passages, which show the believer’s radical reversal in his relationship to self. 2 Corinthians 5:15 “And he died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto…
The Believer Becomes Dead to the Law If one is to come into real liberty in the Lord and be released from the futile striving to attain by his own effort what by faith he may obtain as God’s gift, he must apprehend this second reversal in his relationships. In light of his own…
The Believer Becomes Dead to Sin God does not speak of being dead to “sins” but to “sin.” He does not talk of “victories” but of “victory.” He does not command us to be troubled over our sin but to be “dead” to it. He makes it very clear that He does not mean…
This positional victory over sin through grace is perfect. In Christ, God has taken the believer beyond the necessity of sin’s lordship. In Christ, sin’s power is broken, and its claim is canceled. Several times in Romans 6 God declares the believer’s perfect freedom from the power of sin. Romans 6:18, 22 “And being…
Entrance into the new sphere involves a decisive, clean-cut reversal of every relationship obtained in the old sphere. What the sinner was alive to the saint becomes dead to, and what the sinner was dead to the believer becomes alive to. The radical change wrought in the believer’s position demands a complete reversal in…
A holy God must have a holy people. That which God has taken to be His own, which He has separated unto Himself must be holy even as He is holy. God took Israel out of Egypt into Canaan that they might be made a separate people shut in to Himself that through His…
The Christian is a new creation, in a new sphere with a new Sovereign, living a new life, which speaks of differentiation and distinctiveness. The Christian is a marked man. There is a distinct line of cleavage between the man “in the flesh” and the man “in the Spirit.” There is a definite boundary…
The spiritual history of a believer could be written in two phrases, “Ye in me” and “I in you.” In God’s reckoning, Christ and the believer have become one in such a way that Christ is both in the heavenlies and upon earth, and the believer is both on earth and in the heavenlies….
The believer enters the Kingdom of God through the new birth, where God’s will is supreme. The life of every loyal subject is lived wholly in the will of God. The government of God has spiritual laws that operate beneficently for the well-being of both the individual and society in every department of life….
In Christ Jesus, the believer shares with Christ all His possessions. Every spiritual blessing is ours in Christ. Dare we believe it? All things are ours in Christ. Dare we act as though we believe it? Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with…
The believer in Christ is where Christ is. Christ is in His Father’s immediate presence, at His Father’s right hand, and in His sight; so is the believer in Christ. Ephesians 2:6 “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.” Colossians 3:3 “For ye are dead,…
Co-crucifixion opens the door into co-resurrection. Death is the gate to life. Identification with Christ in His death and burial is but the beginning of the believer’s union with Him in endless life. Death is both an ending and a beginning, an exit and an entrance. Romans 6:5 “For if we have become united with him in…
What, then, shall be done with this most stubborn foe? This most tyrannical sovereign? This bold usurper of God’s place? God has plainly declared what He has already done with him in His Word. He has but one place for “the old man,” and that is the cross, and but one plan for the…
Self-trust—”the old man” is very self-confident and feels no need for one wiser and stronger than himself. Trusting in his own powers and resources, he is prone to say, “Though all men shall deny Thee, yet will not I.” Self-sufficiency—the self-confidence of “the old man” fosters an egotistical, smug self-satisfaction that leaves him stagnant….
Let us, then, pause for a moment to take a full-length portrait of this hideous, heinous self; let us face his manifold operations honestly and see if we are not forced to accept God’s estimate of him and to acquiesce in the method of deliverance from his sovereignty. The foundation of life in the…
The vast majority of Christians stop short in their experience of the blessings of salvation, with the joy of forgiveness of past sins and the hope of heaven in the future. But the present is a forty-year wilderness experience full of futile wanderings, never enjoying peace and rest and never arriving in the promised…
In each of these spheres is a sovereign who purposes to rule with undivided authority. Colossians 3:9-10 9 ”Lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.”…
Crossing God’s bridge of salvation, the believer enters into a totally new sphere, which requires the enthronement of a new Sovereign over his life. The Head of the new creation must become its Lord if all things are to become new. When the risen Christ ascended to heaven, His Father exalted Him to the…
The new order demands a new standard of life. Self-exaltation was the norm of the old life. Sin was less sinful than it really is, and holiness was less holy than it really is. In this new creation, there is a new conception of sin. Things that before seemed altogether right now seem entirely…
The new birth entitles the believer to membership in the new order of beings, of which the risen Christ is the Head. The implantation of the divine life and the impartation of the divine nature in the believer form a completely new entity. The man in Christ is a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17…
The Lord Jesus has told Nicodemus of the necessity, the nature, and the Author of the new birth, but he still said, “How can these things be?” Was it a personal question? Did Nicodemus want to know how such a miracle as regeneration could be wrought in himself, even though he might still be…
But Nicodemus did marvel at what our Lord was saying and could only reply “How can these things be?” Nicodemus like many others today had preconceived ideas and prejudices which made it difficult for him either to understand or to accept the divine simplicity of God’s plan of salvation. “He had to descend from…
What then does God purpose to do to equip a repentant, believing sinner for membership in the new order of heavenly holy men? He purposes to endow him with a new nature that fits him for citizenship in His Kingdom and for sonship in His family. He purposes to bestow upon him his own…
Jesus has expressed to Nicodemus the imperativeness and inflexibility of the necessity of a new birth for the implantation of the new life. But has Jesus made an arbitrary, perhaps even unreasonable, demand, or has He only stated a law of the spiritual Kingdom, which is as reasonable as the law that governs the…
John 3:4 “Nicodemus said unto Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” What could Nicodemus have thought a man could gain through a second physical birth that he had not received through the first? What additional inheritance…
Crossing God’s bridge of salvation begins with the believer’s justification. Still, it does not end there, for justification in its twofold aspect deals mainly with our past and carries us only over the borderline into the new sphere. It gives us a new standing before God but does not equip us to live in…
THE GREAT REFUSAL (2) Every sinner is guilty of countless sins, but there is one above all others for which God is today condemning him and holding him accountable, and that is the sin of refusing Jesus Christ as his Savior. Wrapped up in that sin are all the others. That is the sin…
THE GREAT REFUSAL (1) Jesus Christ spoke some very sad and solemn words during His earthly ministry, but among the saddest and the most solemn are these: John 5:40 “And ye will not come to me, that ye may have life.” These words were spoken to men who professed to believe and love the…
THE FIRSTFRUITS OF FAITH (2) But the forgiveness of sins is but half, and that is the negative half of the first fruits of faith. Merely removing the penalty for and the punishment of sins does not undo all the work of sin. The natural man is a sinner, rebel, and outlaw. He needs…
THE FIRSTFRUITS OF FAITH The inheritance into which the believer enters as a son and heir of God is a very rich and beautiful one and includes every spiritual blessing in Christ. But the blessing primarily coveted is relief from the burden of sins, the sense of forgiveness, the assurance of pardon. The circumstances…
THE RESPONSE OF FAITH Faith is very simple, yet it is a very comprehensive thing and involves in its operation the mind, the heart, and the will. Faith includes belief, which is the assent of the mind to the things written in God’s Word concerning the Savior. We believe He is the Christ, the…
THE RESPONSE OF FAITH In the parables of the Kingdom (Matthew 13:1-52), Christ likened the Kingdom of heaven to a field in which there were both wheat and tares, and to a net in which were both good and bad fish. He states that no attempt will be made to separate them until the…
THE RESPONSE OF FAITH — THE BRIDGE CROSSED Man has had nothing to do with building the bridge of salvation. That was God’s work and His alone. God furnished both the material and the workmanship by which this wondrous bridge was built. “By grace are ye saved.” Titus 2:11 “For the grace of God…
THE GRACIOUS INVITATION God not only provided a Savior for every sinner, but He has, through the Gospel, sent forth an invitation to those “of every tongue, and people, and nation” to accept His gift, to partake of His feast, to inherit His riches, to share the blessings of His heavenly home. His infinite…
In this book, we are writing, as it were, the spiritual biography of man. Our story encompasses his life in creation, in the Fall, in grace, and glory. We have seen what God meant for him to be in creation, what he became in the Fall, and what God has done for him through…
THE MOST TRIUMPHANT WORDS ever spoken were those which fell from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ when on the cross He said, “It is finished.” It was the divine proclamation that grace had triumphed over sin. It was God’s pronouncement to the world that all that had been lost both to Him…
THE RESULT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT’S BAPTISM Through His death, resurrection, and exaltation, the Lord Jesus removed the penalty of sin and broke its power. Through union with Him by faith, He made it possible for the believer on earth to live the same life of victory, power, and holiness as He lived in…
THE PROMISE OF CHRIST FULFILLED Christ had promised that if He went away, the Holy Spirit would come, and His promise was fulfilled literally. He died and rose again. He met the disciples individually and collectively several times, revealing Himself to them as their risen Lord. He gave them a last commission, then repeated…
There remains yet one thing to be done to perfect God’s gracious plan of salvation. A connecting link between the Savior in Heaven and the sinner on Earth is needed. The finished work of Christ by some means must be made applicable to and operative in the souls of men. A way must be…
The Sympathetic Advocate God cannot condone sin nor company with it, whether that sin is in the sinner or in the saint. Sin always, everywhere, separates from God. When the believer sins, his fellowship with God is broken, but he cannot restore himself any more than the sinner could save himself. As the sinner…
THE PRESENT WORK OF THE LIVING CHRIST There are three tenses in salvation: past, present, and future. Three statements may be made regarding the sinner, which are apparently contradictory yet absolutely true: the believer has been saved, the believer is being saved, and the believer will be saved. There is a salvation that is…
There remains but one double span to complete God’s wondrous bridge of salvation. The God-man, crucified, buried, and risen, must go back to His Father in glory and be exalted to the place of honor and power at His right hand. Only then would His work be completed. At the resurrection, Christ Jesus was…
THE RESURRECTION — A SURE PLEDGE The body that had been specially prepared for Him in the incarnation (Hebrews 10:5), that had been laid down in death upon the Cross (Hebrews 10:10) was now raised and came forth from the tomb. Matthew 28:5-6 5 “And the angel answered and said unto the women, “Fear ye…
THE RESURRECTION — A CONSUMMATED VICTORY Acts 2:23 “Him, being delivered by the determinate will and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” In undertaking the reconciliation and redemption of the world, God obligated Himself to deal fully and finally with sin and all its consequences. Every…
Having granted that incarnation and crucifixion are necessary spans in the bridge of salvation, one is driven to the acceptance of resurrection as the third span or all that has been gained through the other two will be lost. The intimate relationship between these three fundamental truths, their unbreakable connection in fact, is brought…
But, would the death of Christ also deal with the sin question in such a way as to bring satisfaction to God? God has an unalterable, irrevocable attitude toward sin, which is most clearly revealed in His judgment upon it. ” The wages of sin is death.” Death is the expression of God’s implacable…
Christ Jesus not only came into the world to die, but He knew that He came for that purpose. From the very beginning of His public ministry, the Son of Man had a brooding anticipation of “an hour” that was to come — an hour which, in some eventful way, would be the culmination…
The revelation of God in Christ to man and the redemption by God in Christ of man were undoubtedly the preliminary and the primary purpose in the incarnation. But they do not exhaust the exceeding riches of God’s grace in salvation nor complete His purpose in sending His only begotten Son into the world….
God gave that twofold revelation in Christ Jesus, the God-man. Only the Son could reveal accurately and authoritatively the Father because He alone had seen the Father. John 1:18 “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Matthew…
A perfect reconciliation was brought about within God’s being by synthesizing His holiness and His love, by which each claim was satisfied. God’s holiness and righteousness compelled Him to pronounce the curse upon the serpent, the man, the woman, and even upon the earth. God had said, “For in the day that thou eatest…
The Bible is the Book of Redemption; it’s one theme from the beginning to the end is salvation through a Saviour. Luke 24:27 “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Luke 24:44 “And He said unto them, “These are the words…
There is a gospel of Satan and a Gospel of Christ; the one is the exact antithesis of the other. Satan’s gospel has no place for the grace of God. Satan’s gospel reverses God’s estimate of the natural man. It does not admit that in himself, he is hopelessly incurable and incorrigible, even though…
How does this gospel of the rationalist deal with sin? Sin is in the world. Sin is in man. How does the rationalist account for its origin, and what does he say of its end? He evades the issue altogether by calmly denying the necessity of anyone having such knowledge. I recently read a…
The revelation of this conflict is unfolded in a Book. The incarnate Word has gone home to His Father, but the written Word is still on earth. In it, the defeat of the devil and the victory of the Christ is recorded in large type. The way of salvation through the atoning death and…
Someone has said, “Man is incurably religious.” Another beautifully wrote, “God created man a deep and everlasting void. The soul in its highest sense is a vast capacity for God but emptiness without God.” It is most assuredly true that man was made for God, and his heart can never be fully satisfied until…
One man looks for salvation through character or what he is; another trust in education or what he knows; while a third seeks it in service or what he does. He believes he can be saved through good works. He comes to God with self-confidence and says, “What shall I do that I might…
Another bridge that men attempt to erect over the yawning sin-made chasm between God and man is that of education. Ignorance due to lack of opportunity is believed to be the cause of much of the world’s sorrow, suffering, and strife. The cry is, “Educate everyone, elevate standards, raise ideals, and change the environment….
But there are those who, refusing to accept God’s estimate of the natural man, deny the necessity of any radical and revolutionary change in him. They delight in the exaltation of the flesh and reject the self-evident fact that human nature is in utter ruin though they are compelled to admit that it is…
God’s eternal purpose in man’s redemption has been in the gradual process of fulfillment ever since it was formed, and each succeeding century has brought it nearer to its consummation. The heart of God’s plan of redemption was a Savior. This Savior was to come through the seed of a woman. God was to…
In Manaus, Brazil, a remarkable phenomenon can be seen between the Rio Negro and the Amazon Rivers. The meeting point of these two rivers is referred to as the Meeting of Waters. The coffee-colored water of the Amazon River joins together with the waters of the Rio Negro, which appear to be black. If…
The die has been cast. From this time forward, Satan will contest with God for the possession of the earth and all therein. He has set himself up as an opposing rival claimant to the world’s sovereignty and to man’s worship. He will establish a kingdom of his own. God, for a purpose, will…