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.

Tempting Our Sinless Lord

Turning now from the luxurious garden to the barren wilderness, the same Tempter comes to our Lord Jesus, the last Adam, when he was hungry after his fasting of forty days and forty nights; and the Tempter came with the same three appeals. Our Lord Jesus had the natural desire to enjoy food for his body. He was hungry, and the desire was right. But the Tempter asked him to satisfy that hunger in a wrong way. Satan again begins his attack by a question. He does not hold before Christ the temptation to become as God. He raises the question as to whether he is the Son of God, and suggests that this be proved by making use of the omnipotence of the Creator to satisfy his own human needs. It was far more subtle than the appeal to Eve’s desire to enjoy the fruit; but at the bottom it was an attack on the Word of God. Our Lord’s answer not only checkmates the Tempter, but states a profound truth by which his brethren may enter into victory under similar temptations. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Our Lord had a natural desire to get things. What he desired to get was “all the kingdoms of the world.” They belonged to him. He came to earth to secure them. Satan strikes at this perfectly right desire to get things by showing our Lord all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, “and he said unto him, All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” The desire to get these kingdoms was right; but the temptation was to get them in some way not of God’s ordering. Making a step outside the will of God always means exchanging the worship of God for the worship of Satan; and so our Lord answers: “Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

Our Lord also had that third desire, the desire to accomplish things. The work he came to accomplish was to bring redemption—to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. He came to his own with the desire that they should recognize him as the One sent from God, their Messiah. Satan strikes at this right desire, and presents to Jesus a quick way to accomplish this purpose. But again it is a way with a question mark regarding God’s Word.

It has been suggested that the thought here is that Jesus could prove to the multitude gathered below in the temple court that he was indeed the Son of God when this Messianic prophecy was fulfilled before their eyes in such a startling way. The reply of our Lord is significant. “Again it is written, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God.” This quotation from Deuteronomy 6:16 refers back to the incident at Rephidim when the children of Israel made trial of Jehovah by saying: “Is Jehovah among us, or not?” (Exod. 17:7.) So Satan asked Jesus to prove that God’s Word was indeed true, and settle the fact that he was the Son of God and that Jehovah was indeed with him.

As our first parents fell at all three points of attack, so our Lord won the victory at every point. Borrowing again an illuminating suggestion from Dr. Kyle’s study of the subject, we have here the real explanation of that word concerning our Lord that he was tempted in all points like as we are. He was tempted on every side of his nature. He did not necessarily meet every individual form of temptation that has come to other men, but he did meet the Adversary at these three points, which comprise all the possible area of temptation.

The victory over temptation has been won. His victory is a guarantee of our triumph over every form of temptation that can ever meet us. It is ours to choose whether we shall share in that victory already won by our Elder Brother, or be united with the first Adam in his defeat.

THE CONQUEST OF TEMPTATION

The Word of God never offers freedom from temptation. But it does offer to Christians victory over all temptation. One of Satan’s lies that has been accepted as almost an axiom in the thinking and the experience of Christians is that no one can expect victory over every one of his temptations. But God says: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13). It is significant that this verse is immediately preceded by a word of warning: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

There is ever before the Christian the possibility of falling. There is no state of grace from which he may not, before some temptation, step into awful sin. But God’s Word, which cannot be broken, stands pledged to us that in every temptation there is “the way of escape.” And our Lord Jesus is “the Way.” Victory over temptation was won by Christ. Satan is an already defeated foe. Defeat in temptation came to Adam. It is for every man, and every Christian, to decide whether he will share the first Adam’s defeat or the last Adam’s victory.

The two great temptation scenes pictured in the Bible, that of our first parents and that of our Lord, show that temptation finds its way into the human heart through three avenues. When man falls before these temptations the resulting sins are what the Apostle describes as “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life.” Let us see how this Bible picture of the sins that are in the world corresponds with conditions in the twentieth century.

Africa’s Three Sins

A missionary recently back from the heart of Africa was describing some of the intimate things that she had learned regarding the natives. As she spoke of the daily life of the natives, and told of the chief problems of missionary work, there were three outstanding sins that were emphasized. There is the gross immorality, which came up for mention in connection with the description of the tribal dances and what they lead to. There is the grasping after possessions, a tendency to covetousness that is so deeply imbedded in their natures that the missionaries need to exercise the greatest care in dealing with new converts. This native quality came vividly to the missionary’s mind when she was speaking of the native Christian evangelists and the problem of compensating them in such a way that the old cupidity will not be aroused. A third characteristic of the native in all the villages is his consuming desire to secure a high place in the “Four Hundred” of his tribe. There are distinct social honors, and for many of the young men the passion of life is to win these honors.

This missionary had no intention of analyzing the outstanding sins of the natives, but these three things naturally came before her as she described their daily life. And these three comprise “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life.”

Put into briefer form these three sins are lust, covetousness, pride. All sin comes under one or other of these three classes.

America’s Three Sins

These three are the outstanding sins of America. Dan Crawford came out of Africa into civilization just about the time the “newer” forms of dancing were having their first popularity. He made the startling statement that he had seen all of these unspeakably vile dances in pagan Africa. In America, he said, they were only in a new setting. Essentially they were the same, and they were for the same purpose. What we call the gross sin of the African flourishes in every civilized land.

Those who read a business man’s article, published several years ago in The Sunday School Times, on “The Sin That We Are Afraid to Mention,” will not soon forget his arraignment of the awful sin of covetousness, “which is idolatry.” And it was in the Christian church that this layman found the black sin that Christians keep quiet about. What then shall be said of covetousness in the business world?

There is finally that climax of all sins of America, and of man, the sin of pride, most subtle and most pervading of all, the sin that will culminate in man’s final defiance of God. Saddest of all, it is this sin which appears at its ugliest when it takes the form of spiritual pride in the life of one who is zealous to serve God and to be wholly yielded to him.

In a message that S. D. Gordon gave on temptation he remarked that there are three chief avenues by which Satan reaches men. He stated the three in these brief words: “Sex,” “Money,” “I.” It is exactly the classification that God makes in his Word. If, by his grace, we get victory at these three points, then indeed are we free from the dominion of sin.

So much for the sin that results when man falls before one or another of these temptations. But what of the temptations themselves? How do they affect a Christian who is trusting Christ for victory? What is the practical bearing on the common temptations that meet us in everyday life? Then there is the final, most important question, what is the way to prevent these desires from conceiving and bringing forth sin?

Why Not Freedom from Temptation?

A Sunday School Times reader has written of his experience. “It is not a temptation for me to take a glass of beer; there is nothing in me that requires or desires it; but sometimes it might be and has been a strong temptation to get impatient, which I have yielded to at times. Why should one be any more a temptation than the other, provided I am in victory over all sin?”

Careful distinction must be made between temptation itself and the form that the temptation may take. The appeal to a man’s natural desires may change its form, but always, in every part of his nature, he will be tempted while he is in this mortal body. The desire for beer which leads to intemperance and sin is an appeal to a natural appetite. Sin is moral, and does not reside in the physical appetites, which are merely the channels for the temptation and sin. A man who has been in bondage to drink may through the power of Christ completely lose that desire and have no further temptation to that particular form of appetite. But the temptation to intemperance remains. For the natural appetites remain. While the appetite may give up this taste or that, and thus be dead to certain forms of temptation, the Christian is always liable to the temptation to go contrary to the will of God, in satisfying these natural appetites of the body: hunger, the sacred sex desire, and all the natural impulses of the body that may seek expression in lawful ways.

The Times reader compares his freedom from the temptation to drink with the appeal that is made to him to get impatient. But strictly speaking, one is never tempted to be impatient. No one desires to be impatient, and Satan could not use any incentive to such a temptation. Yet we sometimes speak of these temptations to irritability, jealousy, loss of temper, as though there were some secret springs in our nature labeled “Impatience,” “Irritability,” and like qualities, and that the temptation consisted in Satan touching these springs and causing the sin. A business man does not lose his temper for the sake of the pleasure it gives him. It may be an intense desire to have justice that has led to his outbreak against some one who has dealt unfairly. The temptation has come along the line of some natural desire. So with the housekeeper who is irritated with her maid over some bit of stupidity, or the young girl who is “blue” and moody because her plans for the day’s enjoyment have been upset.

Temptation Remains—Its Form Changes

Thus it is that while a Christian who yields utterly to God and accepts Christ as his victory may instantly be free from even the temptation to drink, or to smoke, or to indulge in worldly amusements, or to do a hundred and one things that he has been accustomed to do, the temptations to the root-sins of lust and covetousness and pride will remain with him. They will take more subtle forms. Satan cannot tempt him now in the grosser, worldly way. He will now take advantage of this one’s very zeal for God, and will make appeal to his earnest devotion to God’s service to lead into sins of impatience and irritation and jealousy and pride.

In the face of these temptations, what is the guarantee against failure which the victorious Christian has, and which the man of the world knows nothing of? When a Christian wholly yields his life to the mastery of the Lord Jesus he has still the desire to enjoy things, the desire to get things, and the desire to accomplish things. Christ does not kill the natural desires. It is the old self-life that Christ wants to put to death. That is why a Christian must share in present experience the crucifixion-death of his Lord before he can share his victory over temptation. This is what surrender of self means for the Christian who desires victory. He must, moment by moment, reckon himself to be dead unto sin. He is not dead to temptation, for his natural human desires are still there.

Desires Remain—Their Object Changes

In the Christian who has learned the full secret of victory these natural desires are lifted to a new plane. His desires now do not center in the old self-life. They center in Christ. To him to live is Christ. His whole desire is Christ. He still desires to enjoy things, but only in a way that shall glorify God. He desires to get things, but to get them for God, not for self. His desire to accomplish things is to do things for God.

This does not mean that the victorious Christian will not be open to fierce temptations, just as our Lord was,—real temptations that require a real conquest. But as he abides in Christ, accepting by faith the victory that Christ already has won, instead of striving to struggle against these assaults of the enemy, the temptations remain merely temptations, and do not pass into the sins of lust or covetousness or pride.

These three channels of temptation appear to correspond in a remarkable way with the three-fold nature of man—body, soul and spirit. And for the man in victory all these are Christ’s. Here is the human body with all the natural appetites intact. But the Christian who is reckoning the old self-life to be dead knows that this body now, with all its natural desires, is “for the Lord; and the Lord for the body” (1 Cor. 6:13), for “Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that is in you, that ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19, 20).

The Secret of the Single Eye

There are in the victorious Christian not only the desires of the body but the desires of the soul. For may we not say that the sin of “the lust of the eye” is a sin of the “soulish” part of a man’s nature? It concerns his desire to acquire the things that he sees. To the natural man these things are riches to be obtained for himself. “He that hath an evil eye hasteth after riches” (Proverbs 28:22). The wise man here connects covetousness and “the evil eye.” Let us hear the words of the Master of wise men: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth consume and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also. The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:19-24).

Here is the clear choice. The desire to get the riches we see may become the lust of the eye, covetousness, the servant of mammon. But the Christian abiding in Christ has a “single eye,” that is, he has but one passion, to lay up treasure in heaven. He has not a doubtful mind as to whether he may grasp after this or that. He has but a single question, as his eye is single, and that is how may he glorify God in his getting? He makes use indeed of the mammon of unrighteousness, but not for self’s sake,—for the sake of Another.

The Most Subtle Sin

May we not call the most subtle sin of all, the sin of pride, a sin of the spirit? The victorious Christian still has the desire to accomplish things. Indeed this desire is intensified a thousandfold. To the natural man this desire centers wholly in self, whether he knows it or not. But one in whom the old self-life is dead cries with Paul, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). With the psalmist he sings: “My soul shall make her boast in Jehovah: The meek shall hear thereof, and be glad. O, magnify Jehovah with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:2, 3). “In God have we made our boast all the day long, and we will give thanks unto thy name forever” (Psalm 44:8). This sort of boasting leads not to self pride but to meekness. “Thus saith Jehovah, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me, that I am Jehovah, who exercise lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth” (Jeremiah 9:23).

All desires of life, then, for the Christian who abides in victory, center in Christ. “And whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17).

And conquest of temptation is not a negative matter. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and only the heart filled with that love which is Christ can know freedom from lust, covetousness, and pride. Back of these three outward sins, there is the inward nature which has departed from God. Perhaps no one in our day has pointed out more clearly the three great sins of omission than has Miss Louisa Vaughan, of China. She calls these the “Christian sins”: Failure to love the Lord our God with all our heart and strength and mind; failure to love one another as Christ loved us; failure to believe on Christ so that the works that he did and greater works than these should be wrought through us. These Christian sins, Miss Vaughan insists, must be confessed and cleansed in the blood of Jesus before the fulness of the Spirit can be enjoyed. To have these commandments fulfilled in us is the Victorious Life. And only when this root-condition of unlove and unbelief (which are really one, for “love believeth all things”) is dealt with shall we know freedom from lust and covetousness and pride.

HOW JESUS LIVED THE VICTORIOUS LIFE

In what sense was Jesus a man as we are? We read that he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. But have you ever asked, Of what comfort or strength is it to me that he was tempted in all points as I am, if he was without sin? It is just because I am not without sin that I fall before these temptations.

Is it true after all that the Lord Jesus was a man as I am?

Was not the real secret of his victory over sin the fact that he was God?

Is not the secret of my defeat the fact that I am just a man and not God?

The answer to these questions reveals one of the richest secrets in the Word concerning the real meaning of the Victorious Life. For we shall find this startling truth, that if we are to live the Victorious Life at all we must live it by the same rule as Jesus of Nazareth lived it.

Christ had to come to earth to show us what man is like. A needed emphasis has been put upon the truth that our Lord came to earth to reveal the Father,—to show men what God is like. But it was just as necessary that our Lord should reveal what God intended man to be.

If we wish to know what God is like there is but one thing to do: look at Jesus. So there is no way of discovering what a true man is like except by looking at Jesus. He is the only “man,” in the true sense of the word, who has lived since sin entered the human race. Through the fall man lost the image of God, and from that day until our Lord came there was no example of man as God intended him to be.

A mistaken notion, encouraged by the poets, prevails quite commonly, that to sin is human; to forgive, divine. Whatever the measure of truth in the little sentiment, the error in it is more dangerous. To sin is not human; it is devilish. Sin is no part of man as God planned him to be. And so our Lord represents in himself what God intended a man to be, and he lived according to that plan.

The One True “Man”

The name for himself most often upon the lips of our Master was “the Son of man.” A notable Greek scholar has recently pointed out that this expression means far more than a son of a human parent. It rather suggests that gathered up into this Son of man are all the qualities of what “man” is. So, may we not say that as the fulness of God dwelt in him bodily so did the fulness of man dwell in him?

Some one has suggested that God did wonderful things through the Lord Jesus not because Jesus was God, but because he was perfect man. What does this really mean in terms of our everyday life?

Nowhere in Scripture is there such a remarkable setting forth, first of the deity of our Lord, then of his humanity, side by side, as in the first and second chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in a Son.”

“Very God of Very God”

Thus the wonderful epistle opens; and then that Son is presented first as one who expresses the very image of the substance of God. He is compared with angels, and shown to be infinitely above them. God the Father speaks of his angels as messengers; he addresses the Son: “thy throne, O God.” In the second chapter again are angels compared, this time with man. The same Son is shown to be made for a little while lower than the angels, taking the form of man.

In this first chapter of Hebrews the Holy Spirit, when he seeks to attest the truth that Jesus is God, calls the Old Testament to witness, and two groups of three quotations each are made, each time the words being put in the mouth of God the Father. In the second chapter when the Spirit seeks to press home the parallel truth that Jesus is a man, one with us, he uses a group of three quotations from the Old Testament. In these quotations we shall discover something of the preciousness for us of the truth that the Lord Jesus was a man, one with his brethren. “For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying ...” (Heb. 2:11).

Then there follow in the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the second chapter of Hebrews the three quotations from the Old Testament.

This is the first:

One With Our Lord in Resurrection

This is the twenty-second verse of the twenty-second Psalm, the Crucifixion Psalm. But the twenty-second Psalm is more than a crucifixion Psalm; it is a resurrection Psalm as well. This twenty-second verse that the Spirit uses to prove that Jesus is one with us is the first verse of the resurrection half of the Psalm. When our Lord rose from the dead he said, “Go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God” (John 20:17). This was the first time that our Lord linked those words “my Father and your Father.” For in his resurrection he was in a new way “the firstborn of many brethren.” “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee,” was not spoken of the eternal generation of the Son of God, the living Word who was not begotten on a day but was before all time. Neither do the words refer to the glad day when the babe was born of the Virgin. They refer to that glad resurrection day when in a new way he declared God’s name unto his brethren. This is made clear in Acts 13:32, 33: “And we bring you good tidings of the promise made unto the fathers, that God hath fulfilled the same unto our children, in that he raised up Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.”

We are one with our elder Brother, then, in death and resurrection, and here is the death-blow to Satan’s lie of universal brotherhood and universal fatherhood. The firstborn of many brethren is brother only to those who share in his death that they may share also in his new birth.

One With Our Lord as Witnesses

The third word from the Old Testament quoted in the second chapter of Hebrews which attests the humanity of our Lord is this: “Behold, I and the children whom God hath given me.” These words from Isaiah 8:18 were originally from the lips of Isaiah, who said: “Behold, I and the children whom God hath given are for signs and for wonders in Israel for Jehovah of hosts.” Dr. W. J. Erdman once remarked that when Isaiah’s two sons walked along the streets of Jerusalem they were living sermons for the children of Israel to read. The name of one was “Mahershalal-hash-baz,” and whenever an Israelite looked upon this son he heard God saying to him “the spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth.” If he believed God he knew that this was a prophecy of the terrific judgment of God that was to fall on a sinning nation. Isaiah’s other son was “Shear-jashub,” or “the remnant shall return,” and the discerning Israelite who could read this sermon aright saw in it the glad hope of God’s grace in the day of judgment saving a remnant of those who put their trust in him. The name of the father of these two sons, “Isaiah,” means “the salvation of Jehovah.”

Evidently the thought is that our Lord and we, his brethren, are still for signs and wonders in setting forth the salvation of Jehovah in its two phases, of terrific judgment that is to come upon a disobedient world and the glad message of salvation to the remnant who shall believe.

The second quotation from the Old Testament used in the second chapter of Hebrews to prove our Lord’s true humanity is in these remarkable words: “I will put my trust in him.” How can this quotation have any bearing on the fact that he is our brother and that he lived down here as a man?

The Heart-Throbs of Our Human Lord

The quotation is from the second verse of Psalm eighteen: “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust.” These originally are “the words of David, the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.” But, as a noted Bible teacher has pointed out, the Holy Spirit put into the mouth of David words that went infinitely beyond his own experience, words that could only be fulfilled in their true meaning when the greater Son of David came and met the forces of evil that were faintly foreshadowed by the enemies David met.

Read through the eighteenth Psalm as the words of the Lord Jesus. It is an inspired description of the awful conflict of the powers of darkness against the Son of man, when he tasted death for every man. Have you ever wondered why there were not given to us in the four Gospels more intimate glimpses of the human heart-throbs of Jesus? Have you wished that you might enter somewhat into the meaning of Gethsemane, rather than to have him go into the garden alone? Read in the eighteenth and other Messianic Psalms the human heart-throbs of the Son of man.

HIS Secret of Victory

Read on in the Psalm the description of this conflict with the supernatural powers of evil, and find in it the secret of our Lord’s victory over them. He did not count upon any strength in himself. He looked to another. He was a man, and if there was to be any strength in him for victory over that supernatural enemy, that strength must come from another. The secret of our Lord’s victory was just this: “I will put my trust in him.”

The Holy Spirit made no mistake in his selection of Old Testament passages when he wished to show that it behooved this Saviour of ours “in all things to be made like unto his brethren,” and that “in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted” (Heb. 2:17, 18).

Jesus lived the Victorious Life, not because he was God, but because he was perfect man; he lived as God planned that man should live. In a very true sense (though the statement would need certain qualification), our Lord took to himself no more advantage in the matter of winning victory over temptations than have we, his brethren.

Why He Emptied Himself

But he was God. Yes, all the fulness of the Godhead was in him, or he could not have made atonement for the sins of his brethren. But remember that Christ Jesus emptied himself. This does not mean that he ceased in any sense to be God. But there was something that he had as God, in glory with the Father, that he did not have as the God-man living here on earth. He was rich up there; he was poor down here (2 Cor. 8:9). Of what did Jesus empty himself? He emptied himself of the glory that he had with the Father before the world was. The full meaning of that none of us can fathom. But here again there is a very practical application to our everyday living of this profound doctrine of the humiliation of our Lord:

He emptied himself of that which would have prevented him, in the days of his suffering on earth, from being a true Son of man.

Jesus voluntarily gave up that inherent power that was his as God, and lived his life as God intended that man should live his life, in utter dependence on a power not his own.

When man fell, his sin was a declaration of independence of God. He thus made impossible the living of a true man’s life, for an essential part of a man’s life is to live moment by moment in utter dependence on another, his Maker.

That is why our Lord constantly pointed away from himself. “The Son can do nothing of himself” (John 5:19). “I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 5:30). “I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me, I speak these things” (John 8:28). “The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works” (John 14:10). Our Lord here speaks as the Son of man, not coming in his own name, or living in his own name, but in the name and by the power of Another dwelling within him.

The Son of Man’s Watchword

The secret of the Son of man, plainly written across the record of his earthly conflicts, is surrender and faith. “Not I, but the Father.” And “as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21).

The Son of man’s watchword is, “I will put my trust in him.” Only man can say that. Glorified God cannot say that.

Whenever man says, “I will put my trust in Him,” and means it, all the omnipotence of the risen and indwelling Lord of resurrection life is available for him, and victory is certain.

SERVING WITH “THE MIND OF CHRIST”

“Truly he was the servant of all,” said a friend of J. Hudson Taylor’s as he concluded a narration of some incidents in the life of the great missionary in China. Hudson Taylor was like his Master. Only in so far as the service of any of us Christians is after the example of our Lord is it real service.

In the study of “How Jesus Lived the Victorious Life,” it was seen that Christ emptied himself in order that he might live as a man and open the way for his brethren to win the victory in the same way that he won it. Jesus lived down here as God intended a man should live—in utter, moment by moment, dependence upon Another, and in the last study it was pointed out that our Victory motto must be the motto that Jesus lived by: “I will put my trust in Him.” It is our purpose now to view this truth in particular relation to the service of a Christian, and to examine more closely the meaning of Christ’s “emptying” that we may know wherein he was our example in service.

It is not primarily the acts in the life of Jesus that furnish us our example in service. Many of the recorded activities of Christ, the things he did and the things he said, are by their very nature,—their uniqueness,—deeds and words that we cannot imitate. It is the mind of Christ we are to have. Then shall we have the secret of the spirit and the power of his service.

The great passage in the second chapter of Philippians on the humiliation of our Lord deals with profound mysteries of the eternal world, yet it touches in the most vital way the everyday life and service of the Christian. It concerns the sending of Christ Jesus out of Glory with the Father into the world of men and sin. How startling, then, that our Lord should take such a sublime event, which goes too deep for utterance, and bring it to our very doorsteps, when he says: “As the Father hath sent me into the world even so send I you into the world.”

“Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus,” the Apostle enjoins. What is “this mind”? How are we to have it? Paul goes on to describe it: “Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).

The Mind of Satan

Something of the significance of this sublime passage and the verses that immediately follow, will be seen if we place beside it another picture which also concerns the mysteries of the eternal world and the throne of God. It is found in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations! And thou saidst in thy heart, I WILL ascend into heaven, I WILL exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I WILL sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north: I WILL ascend above the heights of the clouds; I WILL make myself like the Most High” (Isa. 14:12-14).

This is a portion of “a parable against the king of Babylon.” In it we have undoubtedly the picture of the great Adversary of the Lord Jesus Christ, Satan, the highest of created beings; here is a glimpse of his fall and the secret of it. So striking is the contrast that it is hard to escape the conviction that the Spirit intended this to be related to the passage in Philippians that tells of our Lord’s emptying. This contrast is one that runs from beginning to end through the Scriptures, which are, indeed, the record of the conflict between these two beings, the Son of God who became also the Son of man, and the “son of the morning,” who became the son of uttermost darkness.

Pride Incarnate and Humility Incarnate.

The Son of God was the Word, who was in the beginning with God, and was God. But though he possessed that equality he did not esteem it a thing to be grasped after, but he emptied himself of the glory that was his own. The other glorious being, exalted though he was among the hosts of God, was not in the form of God; he was but a creature of the Most High. But he essayed to grasp the equality that was not his: “I will make myself like the Most High.” Mark now the terrific climax in each of these descriptions. The Son of God in becoming the Son of man took step after step in his humiliation, lower and lower, until he touched the bottom in the cursed death of the cross: “becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” Then immediately follows this word: “Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Satan sought to climb higher and higher until his ambition reached after the Godhead: “I will make myself like the Most High.” Immediately follows this word: “Thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the uttermost parts of the pit.”

There is more in the passages, however, than these two tremendous contrasts of humiliation and attempted exaltation, and then of exaltation and uttermost destruction. Jesus told his followers that he was sending them into the world as the Father sent him. His great Adversary likewise sends men into the world to carry out the spirit of his ambition. So he came to our first parents in the garden, and the temptation was that they should imitate him in seeking to be like God. They fell before the temptation and the sin was, essentially, a declaration of independence of God. From that day on every sin, whether the sin of an unbeliever or the sin of a born-again Christian, has resulted because of this independence of God. The conflict of that eternal world has thus been projected into the world of men. The Son of God and the Prince of demons are contending for this world, and the principles underlying the conflict are clearly set forth in these passages that have been before us.

Satan’s Coming Man

This conflict is to have a climax. The sin of man will head up in the Man of Sin. This is he who shall come in the spirit and power of Satan, the false Messiah. Jesus forewarned of his coming, when he said: “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:43). The Isaiah passage describes not only the scene in heaven when Satan reached after the throne of God, but it foreshadows the Man of Sin on earth, “the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God ... even he, whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thess. 2:3, 4, 9-11).

Man’s Final Religion

The spirit of Satan, then, finds its climax in the worship of man, rather than the worship of God. Here is the heart of all sin. This is the central lie of Satan by which he deceives men. The final religion of man, before the coming of the Lord Jesus to earth again, will be the religion of humanity, the worship of man as the only deity. Paul brings all men who reject God’s revelation under this condemnation: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.”

We have been speaking of the great conflict of the ages between Jesus and his Adversary, the conflict that underlies the raging of the nations to-day, as Satan works out his plan to put the creature in the place of the Creator, to send that one, inspired of Satan, who will come in his own name and who will be received because he comes as man. But this same conflict goes on in each individual life.

Every man, because God has given him free will, must make his choice as to which of these he will follow, the Son of man, or the Man of Sin. Even the Christian, who has made his choice, will find constantly before him the possibility of serving in the spirit of his Lord or in the spirit of Satan.

When the Christian is not serving after the example of the Lord Jesus, let him ponder this well,—that he is serving after the spirit of Satan. How startled must Peter have been when the Lord not only told him he savored of the things of men (the spirit of Satan), but actually addressed him as Satan, knowing that it was the great Adversary he was meeting again in one of his loved disciples. Very often is it true of Christians that “ye know not what spirit ye are of.” Is it too much to say that much of the service that is being offered to-day in the name of Christ, by followers of His, is mixed with the spirit of the evil one?

Testing Our Service

What is that spirit of the evil one? It is written large in the two words that stand out in that Isaiah passage: “I WILL.” Set these words against those other words: “Not my will, but thine.” Now let us set these words against our own Christian service and answer the question as to whether it is after the example of the Son of man. What is it to have the mind of Christ?

In three respects is there danger that our Christian service shall lack the mind of Christ. We may work zealously in the energy of the flesh. The old self-life is not reckoned dead, crucified with Christ. If we have the mind of Christ we must become conformed to his death, even as he was obedient unto the death of the cross. There are thousands of Christians who are doing good things but doing them in the energy of the flesh, without the Spirit of God. If we would have the mind of Christ we must have that old self-life crucified, for Christian service done in the flesh cannot please God.

Consecrated Christians who have really surrendered the old self-life may work zealously in the energy of the soul. There is the danger of forcing results that look good but are really not the product of the Spirit of God. Service after the example of Christ is done wholly by the power of Another. He said “not my will, but thine,” and was ready to hold to this when the following of the will of God seemed to mean failure. There is the danger that Christian workers to-day, lured by the example of the success of the children of the world in their undertakings, will go after the same sort of great, showy results in the eyes of men, in their spiritual matters. This is not after the mind of Christ, but partakes of that other mind which says “I WILL.” The mind of Christ will care for no results except those that are the product of the Spirit. And in securing these the eyes will not be upon results but upon the Master, to seek his will in every matter of service, leaving with him the results and the rewards.

Defilement of the Spirit

The third danger, most subtle of all, and pervading all, is pride, the exaltation of the human. And this is the temptation that Satan often successfully uses upon the spiritual Christian who has gotten beyond serving in the energy of the flesh or in the energy of the soul. We must cleanse ourselves of all defilement of flesh and of spirit. Serving “in lowliness of mind, each counting other better than himself,”—this is to have the mind of Christ. Serving in love that envieth not, that vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, that seeketh not its own,—this is to have the mind of Christ. It is at the other pole from pride.

How are we to have the mind of Christ? Not by looking at him as an example and trying to imitate him. There is real hopelessness in singing

For that is just what we cannot do—shape our lives by his example. When we are ready to stop “trying” to do this, and will yield ourselves that we may be conformed to his death, then our trying may be changed to trusting, we can “leave the miracle to him,” and returning to the beautiful hymn whose first verse makes a bad start, we can sing with new meaning the opening lines of the third verse:

THE SECOND COMING AND VICTORY

The next great event in God’s program for the redemption of the world is the coming again to the earth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The last chapter of the Old Testament points forward to his second coming. The last recorded words of the Lord Jesus are his words of promise, “Surely, I come quickly,” in the last chapter of the New Testament. The last recorded prayer of God’s people in the Word is the answer of their heart to this promise, “Even so come, Lord Jesus.”

The last word of the Old Testament is the word “curse,”—“lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” The central word of the last verse in the New Testament is “grace.” He will come with the judgments of his curse and with the revelation of his grace.

Are You Ready for His Coming?

Among the many signs that seem to point to the nearness of his coming there is none more striking than the movement of the Spirit in separating the children of God from the things of the world and making them hungry for the things of eternity. There are many sad evidences of falling away, and of increasing worldliness on the part of large masses of professing Christians, but these make all the more notable that deep hunger for victory in Christ and conformity to his likeness which increasing numbers of Christians are sharing. Is this the work of the Spirit in making a little flock ready for his coming? Are you ready?

The coming of Christ is the great incentive to holiness that is held before Christians in the New Testament. “Every one that hath this hope [the hope of his coming] set on him [set on Jesus] purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).

There are many motives by which the Lord lovingly urges us to seek complete victory in him. We long for a life of joy and peace that we do not have. We long to be rid of a life of struggle against “besetting sins.” Or we are eager to have power in service and get results for Christ that are largely absent in our experience. By this or that motive the Spirit leads us to an earnest seeking of God’s secret of the life of faith. But beyond all these motives is that supreme desire to be well pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before him at his coming” (1 John 2:28).

Boldness Before Him Then and Now

The one way to be ready for his coming, to have boldness and not to be ashamed, is to abide in him. “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not” (1 John 3:6); to be cleansed from sin and to abide in that cleansing makes us ready for his coming. If we are not enjoying the Victorious Life, which is just another way of saying “abiding life,” we are not ready for his coming. And if we are not ready for his personal coming, we are not ready for his presence in our midst now. That which gives us boldness then is what gives us boldness before his throne now when we come to pray. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God: and whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight ... and he that keepeth his commandments abideth in him, and he in him” (1 John 3:21, 22, 24).

If the coming of the Lord is in God’s Word linked so vitally with a life of personal holiness, it is essential that Christians should understand what the Spirit has revealed to us concerning the truth of his coming. It is only at our peril that we neglect it. It is not an accident that most of those who are rejoicing in the Victorious Life are or become deeply interested in the truths of the Word concerning Christ’s coming.

But how shall we know whether our view of his Second Coming is the Scriptural view?

Testing Our View of His Coming

There are two tests that will show with certainty to what extent our belief about Christ’s coming is a vital heart belief such as the Apostles had. The first test concerns more definitely our personal relation to his coming. Is the hope of his coming a real hope for you that makes it the incentive to be ready and makes it a real event to watch for with expectation, as for the return of a loved one?

The second test relates to the whole sweep of God’s purposes of redemption and the part that Christ’s Second Coming plays in them. A right understanding at this point will determine the general plan of activities of the Church of Christ and of the individual Christian in this present day of Grace. How essential then to know God’s thought on this subject, and how idle to suggest that this truth is not of practical bearing on present service. Both the spirit of service and the scope of service are involved, and these two tests show how intensely practical and necessary is the right view of his coming.

The first test has already been considered, and it is seen that the Victorious Life truth is vitally linked with the hope of his coming. The second test of our belief regarding his coming is even more fundamental, and again it will be seen to be closely tied up with the heart secret of the Victorious Life, and with the truth of regeneration as well.

It is a common thing to speak of the doctrine of Christ’s Second Coming as of greater or less relative importance than certain other doctrines; thus, it is pointed out that the Second Coming is mentioned more often in the New Testament than any other doctrine except that of the atonement. It leads to confusion thus to speak of the teachings of the Word as though they could be divided. While it is convenient to study the doctrines separately we miss a great truth if we fail to remember that all these teachings brought to us by the Word of God are connected one with the other and together form a complete unity.

The Second Coming Necessary to the Atonement

The doctrine of Christ’s Second Coming is not a teaching apart from the atonement, but is necessary to the atonement. That is, God’s plan of redemption for us cannot be completed apart from the coming of Christ and the events connected with that coming. His coming therefore is essential to salvation. Not that the understanding of the doctrine is essential to individual salvation. A sinner needs to know very little Scripture in order to be saved; when the Spirit has convicted him of sin a single sentence of Glad Tidings will suffice. But it requires the whole redemptive purposes of God to make that salvation possible. And those redemptive purposes include the appearing a second time of the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ. The importance of our Lord’s Second Coming, then, is exactly parallel with the importance of his first coming and of his present ministry for the believer.

The Word of God presents salvation in a threefold aspect. There is the past, the present, and the future of salvation. “We were saved; we are being saved; we shall be saved.”

The Three “Appearings”

On every side these three aspects of salvation are emphasized in the Word. Attention has frequently been called to the three appearings mentioned in the ninth chapter of Hebrews: “now to appear in the presence of God for us ... now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself ... and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Heb. 9:24, 26, 28).

In the three Shepherd Psalms the same truth is shadowed forth. The twenty-second Psalm points to the redemption accomplished on Calvary, and is the Psalm of crucifixion and resurrection; the twenty-third Psalm is a picture of the present resurrection life in Christ; and in the twenty-fourth Psalm we have the picture of the coming King. He is seen in these three Psalms as the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep; as the Great Shepherd who rose again from the dead, who makes us perfect “in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight” (Heb. 13:20, 21); and as the Chief Shepherd who will appear to give the crown of glory to his faithful servants (1 Peter 5:4).

This threefold salvation is sometimes spoken of as justification, sanctification, and glorification: first, salvation from the penalty of sin; second, salvation from the power of sin; and third, salvation from the possibility of sin.

There are three fundamental errors by which Satan seeks to rob of its power this threefold Gospel, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in his past, present, and future work.

Discounting Christ’s Past Work

There is the teaching that we are saved from the death penalty of our sins by Christ plus our own effort. This error finds expression in many ways. One mistake, more common in the past generation than to-day, is to consider it presumptuous to be sure of salvation. Now if the work is wholly Christ’s it cannot be presumptuous to be certain that that work is complete and is satisfactory to the Father. Then there is the belief that salvation from death and hell depends on our holding on to Christ, and since we may fail and thus fall away, we are never entirely sure of salvation until death comes or until the Lord comes to claim us. These teachings present a subtle mixture of works and grace. If we are saved by grace, if redemption is entirely the work of Christ, then may we indeed have assurance of eternal salvation. In its extreme form this error is pure paganism, salvation by our own efforts. In its more refined and moderate form it keeps Christians from the glorious present assurance of their eternal safety in the Lord Jesus. The safeguard against all these errors is to remember that salvation from the penalty of sin is all of grace. And grace means, Jesus Christ did it all for me. If he did, the work is finished, the work is perfect, and we have a sure guarantee that the purposes of God will be carried out. No one can pluck the saved soul out of the Father’s hand.

Discounting His Present Work

Most Christians are clear on the truth that they are saved by grace. They make no effort of their own to add to the perfect atonement that Christ has made for their sins. But these same Christians when facing the present tense of salvation, the second part of the threefold Gospel, declare that here our own efforts are necessary. We must co-operate with God in fighting sin. We are justified by faith, but we are sanctified, gradually, by struggle. Their error is that they are mixing works and grace. God’s plan for present salvation from the power of sin is exactly the same as his plan for deliverance from the penalty of sin. It is all of grace.

The test of the truth of our view as to Christ’s Second Coming and the future tense of our salvation is as infallibly certain as the tests of the other aspects of salvation. For salvation is all of grace, and any view which makes salvation for the individual or for the universe a mixture of God’s work and man’s work, a mixture of God’s grace and man’s effort, is in error.

The Two Views of Our Lord’s Return

There are two views of our Lord’s coming. One is that the Church of Christ through the preaching of the Gospel and by co-operating with other agencies for righteousness, will Christianize the social order and bring in the period of righteousness which the Bible pictures as the Kingdom age. At the close of this period, the Lord Jesus will come to judge the world. This is called the post-millennial view, because the Kingdom age is known as the “millennium,” or the thousand years. The other view is that this thousand years of blessedness, or the Kingdom age, will not be inaugurated until Christ himself comes as King to set up the new order on earth. This is known as the pre-millennial view.

A well known Christian leader who has been very active in the preaching and working for “social regeneration,” gave a message on the task of the Church in the present world crisis, and the problem of the Church in making the world what it ought to be. He announced as his text, “And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5). One who heard the message remarked that the speaker after announcing his text, “with two swift kicks kicked the text out of the auditorium, and did not allow it to enter again during his discourse.” For the opening sentence of his message was this: “Can we, the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, make things over?”

God’s Word does not say, “we, the followers of the Lord Jesus.” It says “I”; and the Son of God sitting on the throne of his glory is the speaker. The Word of God does not speak of making things over. It says, “Behold, I make all things new.”

Discounting Christ’s Future Work

Here is the fundamental error of the post-millennial view of the Lord’s coming: it is a mixture of works and grace.

God’s plan for establishing righteousness in the universe is exactly the same as his plan for establishing righteousness in the human heart. It is all of grace, not of works. The pre-millennial view means the Kingdom age by grace, as the Victorious Life means the Kingdom principles in the individual heart by grace.

Let each Christian earnestly face these two tests of his attitude toward the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Make the Blessed Hope a Vital Power!

If his hope of the coming of the Lord is not an incentive of vital and present power in his life, there is something wrong with his theory. If a Christian believes that it is not possible for the Lord to come for at least a thousand years, or until the period during which Satan is bound has run its course (whether a thousand literal years or not), can he honestly say that the blessed hope of the personal appearing of his Lord is a vital power in the life?

The second test of our view of his coming can apply also to every part of our salvation. Have we the blessed assurance of eternal salvation through the blood that gives us eagerness and power to lead others into the same assurance? Are we rejoicing in all the blessed “present tenses of salvation,” victory by grace through faith? Are we surrounded by his own light in these dark days because we know that the world’s problem is to be solved by grace, by God himself, so that we live “soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ”?

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND VICTORY

Christian Science offers a life of freedom from worry or anxiety. It proposes to give the secret of the smiling face in the midst of any sort of circumstances.

Christian Science offers complete freedom from the dominion of sin.

Christian Science offers to make faith a vital and all-pervading force in daily life.

Christian Science offers to give deliverance from the bondage of sickness.

It is not wise for Christians to attempt to meet Christian Science by ridicule and sarcasm. Christian Science is offering to supply exactly the things that the hearts of thousands of church members are craving. It is not strange that many should be investigating its claims. If the indication in a single Christian Science center is a fair criterion, there are thousands of church members daily looking into this supposed “new” teaching to see if they can find a faith with a vital reality in it.

These things that Christian Science claims to supply are just the things that are offered to every Christian through the sufficient grace of the Lord Jesus.

The Victorious Life in Christ is a life kept free from worry or anxiety. Its possessors have the secret of a constant, abiding joy that is independent of circumstances (Phil. 4:6, 7; John 15:11; 16:22).

The Victorious Life, which is just Christ himself in the believer, gives complete victory over sin, without struggle (Rom. 6:14; 1 Cor. 10:13; John 8:36).

The Victorious Life is the life of faith, walking in the Spirit, looking unto Jesus, enduring as seeing him who is invisible, counting the unseen things the eternal and real things (Col. 3:3; Gal. 2:20; John 15:7).

The Victorious Life is a life of prosperity for body as well as for spirit, for in Christ is the supply of every present need, for body, soul, and spirit (3 John 2; Ps. 103:3; Matt. 8:17; Rom. 8:11).

If the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ were faithfully preached there would be little prepared soil among church members for the springing up of the seeds of “Christian Science.” It is the Enemy who is sowing these seeds and the supreme sign of his subtle work is this apparent likeness to the true grain. What is the fundamental distinction between Christian Science and the Victorious Life in Christ, between God’s truth and Satan’s imitation of that truth?

Error’s Imitations of Truth

Christian Science says: “In nothing be anxious: there is nothing to be anxious about. All troubles are creations of the mind, results of wrong thinking, and the cure for them is to think them away.”

The Word of God says, “In nothing be anxious.” Not because there is nothing to be anxious about. There is. There is that which required the bloody sweat of the Son of God in Gethsemane. But the Word of God tells us that full provision has been made for those wrong things that may well cause anxiety. Back of the word of the Spirit in Philippians, “In nothing be anxious,” is God. Back of the Christian Science word is “mortal mind.”

Christian Science says, “Reckon yourselves dead unto sin: because sin has no real existence, and since it is a creation of the wrong thinking of mortal mind, the way to think it out of existence is to reckon yourself dead to it. As you reckon, as you believe, you are dead to sin, and for you it has no reality or existence.”

Faith Does Not Create Facts

The Word of God says, “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.” Not because sin does not exist. It does. Not because sin is not real. There is nothing more real in the universe. But Jesus Christ has met the full measure of the guilt and penalty and pollution of sin, and has completely conquered it. If we are crucified with him, buried with him and risen again with him, as every child of God is, then we are to reckon it true that we are dead unto sin: not because our thinking can change facts, but because God himself tells us to count on a great fact, something that he himself has accomplished; as we reckon that fact true our faith is laying hold of the benefits in present experience of that redemption which God has accomplished. My faith does not make the fact true. Faith gives me the benefit of a fact that is true whether I believe it or not. True faith is impossible without something real to rest upon. Satan’s counterfeit faith in Christian Science returns upon itself, endeavors to create facts by thinking them true.

Christian Science says that sickness and death are delusions of the mortal mind. It does not offer a scheme of healing disease but a philosophy to make clear that disease does not exist except as an error in the thinking of mortal mind. Clear away that error in thinking, and the effects of the so-called sickness will disappear.

The Word of God says, “The wages of sin is death”; and, “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” Without entering here into the question of the use of remedies, or the limitations to the use of “the prayer of faith” which will heal the sick, let us remember that in Christ there is full provision for sin and all its results. He came to destroy the works of the devil. It is certainly God’s highest and first will that his children should be in health of body, not in sickness, if this result can be had without injuring his children in other ways. God’s permission of sickness and premature death among his devoted children must not be pointed to as an indication that it is not his first will that all his children should enjoy health of body. God would have all men to be saved, and has made full provision for their salvation: but not all are saved; God would have all his children abide continually in Christ and be kept from sinning, and he has made complete provision for this: but few are entering into their full privileges of victory; God would have his children free from disease, for he is the God who forgives all our iniquities and heals all our diseases, and in Christ he has made full and complete provision for this: but in his infinite love and wisdom he permits many of his children to continue in suffering of body for longer or shorter periods.

Christian Science Kills Faith

In this contrast between Christian Science and the Word of God it will be seen that the teachings of this “faith” cult make faith impossible. Satan always strikes at the center of things in his attacks on Christians and on the Word of God; so he takes away their faith and that which it rests upon. Again and again in personal interviews with those seeking victory, when the meaning of faith has been explained the answer has come, “Why, that would be just like Christian Science. I cannot make a thing true just by believing it.” With Christian Science, thinking a thing true makes it true, or rather, “thinking right” removes the error which has resulted only because the thinking has been wrong. But real faith rests always on facts. We believe, not in order to make a fact true, but because it is true.

So startling is the parallel between what Christian Science offers and what the Victorious Life in Christ guarantees, that a number who have read articles in The Sunday School Times have written to ask if the Victorious Life teaching and Christian Science were not practically the same. In answer to these inquiries a brief Open Letter was published a few years ago pointing out the difference between Christian Science and “the Victorious Life.” The Open Letter closed with this sentence: “They differ from each other as do food and poison, noon-day and midnight, omnipotence and impotence, life and death, Heaven and hell, Christ and Satan.”

A Christian Science Leader’s Admission

A leading advocate of Christian Science called upon the Editor of The Sunday School Times to protest against this article. The interesting thing about the interview with this cultured representative of Christian Science was his earnest effort to prove that he and his fellow Scientists believed just what Christians who were teaching the Victorious Life believed, and were aiming at the same kind of life. As each point was mentioned there was this apparent agreement, until—mark this—until the vicarious atonement through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ was mentioned. There he frankly confessed that they parted company; they do not accept any atonement for sin.

At a Victorious Life Conference a Christian Scientist girl was prevailed upon to attend a meeting where the subject was the meaning of faith in laying hold of God’s Word that “My grace is sufficient for thee,” and similar words of fact and promise. At the close of the meeting an opportunity was given for those who wished by rising to commit the whole matter of victory to God, trusting him to do it all by grace. To the astonishment of her friends, the Christian Scientist girl rose. She asked them, “Are you surprised that I stood? That is what I have believed all along.” She was accepting it all as good Christian Science. At the close of the period of question and discussion the speaker asked if there were those present who had never accepted the Lord Jesus as Saviour from sin, and did not know salvation through the shed blood of Jesus. At the mention of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, this young woman who had stood up to take a step of faith for victory, rose at once from her seat and left the room.

Here we come to the heart of Christian Science error: it denies the blood, the vicarious atonement for sin. And here is the secret of many unsatisfactory attempts on the part of Christians to live a life of victory. Earnestly seeking to claim the wonderful promises of God’s word, many have failed to understand the meaning of the blood of Christ and to share in experience his crucifixion death, that they might also know the resurrection victory.

A Masterpiece of Imitation Victory

Christian Science is the devil’s great masterpiece of imitation victory. It is the vain attempt to know the resurrection life without the crucifixion death. It is the attempted robbery of the life pictured in the twenty-third Psalm, the life of still waters and green pastures, the life in which all the needs of the sheep are met by an all-powerful and all-loving Shepherd. But while attempting to claim the twenty-third Psalm, the Christian Scientist blots out the twenty-second Psalm with its agony of Calvary and its resurrection victory. We must be one with the Lord Jesus in his death and burial before we can be one with him in resurrection life. The blood of the Lord Jesus must be kept always at the heart of the teaching and the experience of the Victorious Life. The reason for much disappointment in the living of the Victorious Life is because there is what may be called a Christian Science acceptance of the teaching without a real foundation being laid in the blood of the Lamb.

First of all, the foundation must be laid in a clear understanding of the meaning of the new birth. Those who have had experience in dealing with hungry Christians seeking the life of victory in Christ, have been amazed at the number of such earnest inquirers who have no clear conception of what it means to be born again, or to be saved by grace.