Part 3

_Nothing._ “Faith does nothing”; faith believes that Jesus has done it all.

Now this is exactly the case with Christian living, and the keeping of the law of God. Whenever a Christian sins, sin is having dominion over him, and that means that he is living under law where he does not belong, and needs to get under grace. Here, just as in salvation from the penalty of sin, grace means that Jesus Christ is doing it all. What is left for me then in the matter of winning victory over sin? _Nothing._ Faith believes that Jesus is doing it all. That is grace, and nothing else is. For if my effort enters, it is not of grace, but partly by the work of the law. That is making void the grace of God, “for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought” (Gal. 2:21).

Christian liberty is changing the bondslavery of sin for the bondslavery of Christ; it is freedom from the law in order that the law may be kept in us by Another; it is changing the law that “made nothing perfect” for “the perfect law, the law of liberty.” “So speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty” (James 2:12).

GOD’S NEW SPELLING FOR “OBEY”

“Trust and obey” is frequently given as the key to living the Victorious Life. “Surrender and obedience,” another suggests as the things necessary for continuance in victory. Instant obedience to every word of God, another says, is absolutely necessary if one would be in victory. Another teacher points out that the New Testament reduces all God’s commandments to two,――believe in Jesus and love one another,――and our duty is thus simplified: we are to obey these two commandments and victory is ours.

But to obey these commandments is exactly what I cannot do. If I obey these two commandments, the whole law of God is fulfilled in me. It is because I have failed to fulfil this perfect law of God, that I cry out with Paul, “Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” The answer to that question gives me the secret of the Victorious Life, the Life that results in obedience. Of what avail is it to tell me that the secret of living the Victorious Life is to obey God, when the very reason I am hungry after the Life is because it _results_ in obedience. That Life does what I have failed to do――obey God.

So long as we make obedience the cause or producer of victory, so long are we under the law. We are living under the Old Covenant. The law says, “He that doeth them [God’s statutes] shall live in them”; that is, it is the law-keeper’s obedience which brings life and victory.

But, it will be answered, when Christians are urged to obey it is not intended that they should do this in their own strength. We must constantly seek divine help to obey. There is the human side and the divine side. On our part we are to strive with all our willpower against sin, and God’s part is to help us in the struggle.

Making Victory Impossible

There is one trouble with this program of human effort co-operating with divine power. _It always leads to defeat_, bringing the struggling man under the dominion of sin. It produces the man pictured in the seventh chapter of Romans. It is the program followed by nearly all Christians.

And that is why nearly all Christians are living in defeat practically all of the time.

It is not that defeats come now and again in the face of difficult temptations; the distressing thing in the experience of most earnest Christians is the consciousness that complete victory is _never_ enjoyed; the occasional bad falls are but indications of a chronic condition of defeat.

The Two Covenants

The reason for this life of defeat is that Christians mingle law and grace, and this makes complete victory an impossibility. When we are in defeat it is because we are under the Old Covenant, which can make nothing perfect. It may be that we are clear intellectually on the distinction between law and grace, but it is the mingling of them in daily experience that results in defeat before sin. The secret of victory, then, is to get entirely from under law and get wholly under grace for the needs of the present moment. What does this mean? How can it be done?

Probably no one has put more concisely and clearly the distinction between the Old Covenant and the New than has Andrew Murray in his “Two Covenants.” Under the Old Covenant, he points out, God says: “Obey me, and I will be your God.” In the New Covenant God speaks in some such words as these: “I will put my law in your heart, and ye shall obey me.” In the Old Covenant, Andrew Murray says, there were two parties, man and God. Man failed to keep his part of the agreement and the covenant was broken. In the New Covenant there is only one party. God undertakes the whole responsibility. The first is law. The second is grace. If man has any responsibility in the second, except to receive God’s provision through faith, then it is no longer of free grace.

A clear-thinking Presbyterian elder, a man of culture and trained mind, who recently saw the truth of Christ as his victory for the first time, was asked what he thought was the difference between the Old Covenant of works and the New Covenant of Grace. Several verses of Scripture had just been quoted which brought out the distinction. He was a man of few words, and he answered by holding up two fingers of his left hand, and one finger of his right hand. He had seen at once, five minutes after entering into victory, what Andrew Murray makes the theme of his helpful book on the Spirit-filled life,――that in the New Covenant it is not man co-operating with God, but God assuming the whole work, and doing it for man.

“I Could Not Live Up to It”

Another Presbyterian elder, also a clear thinker, a lawyer of ability, was recently facing the question of the need of victory in his own life. When the Scripture promises were presented to him, and he was asked whether he would take victory, his reply was a decided “No.”

“Why won’t you?”

“Because I am not sure I could live up to it.”

He still had two parties in his contract. He was still thinking under, and living under, the Old Covenant.

It sounds reasonable when a Christian says, “Of course, I am sure that _Christ_ will always be faithful to his part, but the failure will come because of _my_ weakness.” When a Christian says that, he is not in victory; he has missed the very heart of the Victorious Life. He is still under the Old Covenant. For God made the New Covenant with full knowledge of that weakness of mine. Indeed _it was just because of that weakness of mine that the New Covenant was made_. Had the weakness not been there the Old Covenant would have sufficed. The New Covenant is of no avail, and means nothing, if it is not to operate in spite of that weakness.

Man’s Part in Victory Over Sin

If God does everything in the matter of my obeying the law, what is my part? To do nothing. The human side of this New Covenant is to see that self is kept from doing anything, so that Grace may work. It is the effort of the self life, the human struggle described in Romans 7:7-24, which prevents the victory of Grace.

But surely Grace on God’s part needs something on man’s side if it is to be brought into touch with man. Yes, it needs to be told to man so that he may hear it as a message of good tidings. “Belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). The word of good tidings to law-breaking Christians is that God has put his law in our hearts so that we shall obey him.

What are we to do with the word of good tidings? Believe it. If we do not believe that the law of the Spirit hath made us free from the law of sin, our unbelief does not affect the truth of God’s word, but we ourselves lose the benefit of those good tidings. “For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard” (Heb. 4:2).

“Obey” Becomes “Believe”

The “obey” of the Old Covenant has become in the New Covenant “believe.” The responsibility for obedience has been taken entirely by Christ, and man’s part is to believe that astounding fact. Christians are still urged to obey, but always the spelling of that word is “believe.”

“Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth ... having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God.... But the word of the Lord abideth for ever. And this is the word of good tidings which was preached unto you.... For you therefore that believe is the preciousness: but for such as disbelieve, ... A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; for they stumble at the word, being disobedient.”

These scattered verses in the first and second chapters of First Peter present the new spelling of the old “obey.” Obedience to the truth is simply believing the word of good tidings, and they who stumbled at the word were disobedient because they did not believe the word of good tidings. It is a striking commentary that the King James Version uses “disobedient” in 1 Peter 2:7, where the Revised Version reads “disbelieve.”

If this change from law to Grace is simply a different putting of the matter, leaving man’s responsibility the same, then indeed there is no good tidings for the Christian in the matter of freedom from sin, and the Victorious Life teaching is a myth. If telling us to believe is just another way of asking us to obey, then are we no better off than before, and we must await our resurrection bodies in order to enjoy freedom from the law of sin against which we have been struggling. For with all our mind and heart we may want to obey, but there is that “different law in our members” preventing us from doing the things that we would. What is the new factor in Grace that changes everything? Is it something real, or something that I must produce by my own understanding, just a new _attitude_ to the law?

Is Your Name in This Will?

It is something as real as the inheritance that a millionaire father wills to his son. God gives us a will in the third chapter of Galatians, and he speaks in it of an inheritance, and in words as carefully chosen and as accurate as in a perfect human will he explains who are the heirs in that will. The promise was given to Abraham and to his seed, not “seeds” as of many; “but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). The closing verse of that will reveals the importance of that distinction the Holy Spirit makes between the singular and plural of the word seed. This distinction has puzzled scholars and some have called it an example of Paul’s juggling with words, but it need not puzzle any of the heirs whose names are in this will. “And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise.”

There is but one seed, Christ, and all that I am to get through this will, I get because I am in him. What is the inheritance promised in the will? If an earthly father knows how to will good gifts to his children, what shall be said of the heavenly Father’s gift? The will says that it is “the promise of the Spirit” and that it is through faith (Gal. 3:14). The promise includes complete freedom from the law.

But does not the law also come from God? “Is the law then against the promises of God?” is a most natural question, and it is asked in this legal document which tells us of our inheritance. The answer to that question contains one of the most significant statements in the whole Word of God on the relation of law and grace: “God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been of the law” (Gal. 3:21).

Where “High Ideals” Fall Down

There is as much difference, then, between being under law and under grace, as there is between a dead man and a live man. If a high ideal could have given life, the word tells us, if God could have provided a law which could make a dead man alive, Grace would not have been needed, for righteousness would have been by the law. The free gift of the New Covenant is a new LIFE. That is what the promise of the Spirit provides. Does this give a vivid light upon Romans 8:2, “The law of the Spirit ... made me free from the law of sin and of death?” And the power of the law of the Spirit is the resurrection life of Christ Jesus. So the complete verse reads, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.”

The passage in Romans eight goes on to show how Jesus did for us the thing we could not do, and that as a result of what he did, and is doing through the Spirit, “the requirement of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” If we are appropriating the promise of the Spirit, our inheritance through faith, _we are having fulfilled in us the law of God at this present moment_. That is what the Word of God says. That is what happens when we are under Grace and not under the law. Obedience to the law is guaranteed while we are under Grace,――walking in the Spirit. Disobedience to the law can come only when the Christian is living under law,――walking after the flesh.

But, some one asks, is not a Christian always under Grace? He is, in his _position_, and the Victorious Life is simply walking by faith in that position won by Christ. “We believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor” (Gal. 2:16, 18).

A Christian Under Law

When a Christian sins, transgresses the law, he is building up that which he has destroyed.

He is acting as though he were back under the law.

He is doing the deeds of the old man that has been crucified with Christ.

He is denying the resurrection life of Christ which is in him.

He is walking after the flesh and not after the Spirit.

He is back on the basis of working instead of resting in the finished work of Christ.

He is under the works of the law instead of the hearing of faith.

He is not standing fast in the freedom wherewith Christ has set him free.

There is but one thing to be done in order to get back at once under grace and the faith life,――confess the sin and take cleansing in the blood of Jesus. This is wholly of Grace; no Christian would be so foolish as to try to atone for his sin or to help the Lord Jesus do a complete work of cleansing.

It is exactly the same sort of folly that leads the Christian to seek to add his own effort in the business of winning victory over the next temptation that assails him. “_If we live by the Spirit_ [if we have been born again by the Spirit], _by the Spirit let us also walk_” (by the same supernatural power let us live day by day and hour by hour, letting God do it all by the Spirit) (Gal. 5:25).

God’s new spelling for “obey” is “believe.” And, as Mr. Trumbull put it to a Christian who was grieving because she did not have the faith to believe, “The faith for salvation is the faith for victory.” Faith is just believing the word of God.

A Christian Under Grace

Have you believed the good tidings of future salvation and glory? Believe the same good tidings for present salvation from sin.

If you are under grace, sin shall not have dominion; you are walking in the Spirit.

Christ is dwelling in your heart by faith.

You are freed from the law with its works.

Yet the law of God is in your heart and it is your nature to keep it.

You are a new creation.

You are walking in newness of life.

You can finish the second chapter of Galatians as Paul finishes it: “For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. I do not make void the grace of God” (Gal. 2:19-21).

WHEN TEMPTATION STRIKES

There is no state of grace that can be reached on earth which will guard a man from being tempted. The Victorious Life is a life of victory over temptation, but not a life of freedom from temptation.

Many a young Christian in the first flush of joy over new-found victory has somehow felt that this glorious new liberty was indeed freedom from temptation. For certain temptations have been taken completely out of the life. Perhaps it was the taste for tobacco, and the desire for smoking has been taken away. Or the questionable “border-line” amusements (questionable only to border-line Christians),――dancing and cards and the theater,――have completely lost their attractiveness and offer no temptation.

But suddenly, some day, temptation strikes from an unexpected quarter, and failure comes. It may be all over in a moment, but sin has entered. Perhaps it was a sudden flash of impatience, or irritation, or jealousy. Satan, close at hand, cunningly whispers, “You never had the experience of the Victorious Life.... And you never will.” Or he whispers that still more cunning word, “This higher life business is all a mistake.” And so the soul that has taken Christ as victory is often plunged into discouragement when the truth dawns that in the Victorious Life _temptations multiply_.

In this problem of temptation in the Victorious Life, as in every other conflict with our great Adversary, our safety must be found in the Word of God.

“Can a Dead Man Be Tempted?”

A common error regarding temptation in the Christian life is the belief that temptation is directed against a “sinful nature” within us. Some months ago there was discussed in Notes on Open Letters in _The Sunday School Times_ the question of an earnest seeker who had taken Christ as his victory and was puzzled by this matter of temptation. He wrote:

How should temptation affect us? Christ had no sinful self in his temptation to contend with. Adam before the fall had not his sinful self to contend with; but we, since the fall, have a sinful self, even though we are in victory, if I understand rightfully. In Romans we read that the old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. If we are dead why should evil thoughts or temptations of any kind find in us the slightest desire of yielding to them? What should be the effect of feeling them? A dead man has no life, has he?

Temptation is never aimed against a dead man, nor against evil in a man. There is no meaning in “tempting evil.” There is no need for Satan to direct attacks against that which is already on his side. It is because we are alive and have power to sin that we are exhorted to reckon ourselves dead to――separated from――sin, not dead to temptation.

Temptation Hits Natural Desires

Temptation is directed against the _human_ nature, and finds its entrance through the natural desires and impulses of the body. That is all Satan had to work upon in the case of Adam and Eve, and in the case of “the last Adam,” our Lord himself. Both Adams were sinless men before temptation came,――and “the last Adam” was sinless after temptation came. But both lived in temptable bodies; and it is these human bodies, not any sin nature dwelling in us, that make temptation possible.

A lost man may have depraved and unnatural appetites, as the drink or drug habit, which drop off at regeneration. But the natural appetites remain, and through these temptation may come in many forms.

Satan has no other plan of temptation for Christians than that which he tried successfully upon the first Adam and with disastrous failure upon the last Adam. A study of these two conflicts with Satan reveals the startling fact that all our multiplied temptations come to us through three channels, and three only. If these citadels are held, victory is certain. To understand this not only simplifies the problem of temptation, but shows why certain _forms_ of temptation fall away from the Christian who takes Christ as his victory, while _temptation_ in many other forms remains.

Perhaps no one has summed up more concisely, in terms of everyday experience, these three channels of temptation, than does Professor Melvin Grove Kyle in his teaching on temptation in his seminary classes.

Our Three Desires

Dr. Kyle points out that man has three natural desires: (1) the desire to enjoy things; (2) the desire to get things; (3) the desire to do things.

These three cover the whole range of human desires. For the desire to _enjoy_ things concerns everything that has to do with a man’s body. The desire to _get_ things concerns everything that a man sees outside of himself, the things that he can obtain in one way or another for himself. The desire to _accomplish_ things includes everything that goes out from the man to affect in one way or another that outside world. Professor Kyle’s suggested definition of temptation is this: “Temptation is the incitement of a natural desire to go beyond the bound set by God.”

With this analysis before us, let us look into what happened when Satan came to our first parents. Let it be remembered that none of these three desires necessarily has to do with sin. Adam and Eve had these desires before sin entered. Our Lord Jesus had these same natural human desires.

Sin is doing something that God has told man not to do, or not doing something that God has told him to do. Eve’s failure began, under temptation, when she was willing to consider Satan’s questioning of God’s word.

Eve’s Threefold Temptation

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.” There was the threefold temptation. “She saw that the tree was good for food”; her desire to enjoy things was incited, and she faced the question of satisfying in an unlawful way that desire for enjoyment. She saw that the fruit was “a delight to the eyes”: her desire to get the attractive thing she saw was incited, and she faced the question of whether she should satisfy that desire in a way that God had forbidden. Finally she saw that the tree was “to be desired to make one wise.” Satan had told her that she and her husband would be as God if they ate the fruit. Her desire to accomplish things took the form of reaching out after equality with God.

Now turn for a moment to the analysis of sin and temptation that the Holy Spirit gives in 1 John 2:16: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Here is an inclusive statement of all that is in the world. The apostle is stating here the only three ways in which it is possible for a man to sin. Note that they are the three points at which Eve failed.

When the desire to _enjoy things_ goes beyond the bounds set by God it becomes “the lust of the flesh.” The lawful desire to _get things_, when it turns into sin, becomes “the lust of the eyes.” When the desire _to do things_ leads a man away from God, it becomes “the vainglory [or the pride] of life.”

Dr. Kyle points out in his study of temptation that Eve fell at _every_ point of her nature, and sinned in “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life.” He notes also that the lust of the eyes and the pride of life had no immediate outlet of expression for Adam and Eve, situated as they were in the midst of a world that was all theirs, and so the sin found immediate expression in some form of the lust of the flesh. Yet man had yielded and sinned at all three points.