To make the Christian experience simple in apprehension God keeps before us the everyday events and customs of life. Just as a person, in order to start a life in the natural and receive the requirements of living, must have a birth, so must the one who desires to have a Christian, spiritual experience. All the gifts and powers of the natural man belong to the realm of nature and can adapt themselves to their earthly, natural realm only. They do not function in the same way or capacity in the new realm into which a person is born when he becomes a new creature in Christ. This new life and its development call forth a new nature which qualifies for it and adapts itself to it. The natural life moves under a certain law spoken of by Paul in Romans 8:2 as “the law of sin and death.” The new life moves under a new law: “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” So in the very beginning of the “process of becoming” or the development of Christian character, may I help you?
Get it settled once and for all-are you born again? Or are you trying to be good, do good and make heaven your home, all in the energy and power of a nature which cannot meet the demands of the new life? The apparatus of the old life, no matter how educated, cultured, refined, drilled and trained, can never carry you through. To live the Christian life and enter into the heavenly life hereafter, requires a nature quite other than the natural man can produce. So Christ says ( and I say after Him) “Ye must be born again.” John 3:5, 6-“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
In the first step of this new life-conversion we call it-we become possessors of a new life, a new nature, and are called, “new creatures in Christ Jesus.” In the natural, when a person is born, we say he is given “a fundament of being.” In the new life, Christ is given, the Christ of God, the Mystery of the Ages, the ideal and perfected Man, the Redeemer, the Saviour is given. That does not mean that in the first step all His manifold characteristics and personal charms and various moods and manifestations are all fully realized and appreciated. I mean we get the one Christ. He is not divided. But we need to make room and meet conditions for His revelation and unfolding.
Right here it will be well to remember that in the new creation we walk by faith and not by sight. The old life moves under the natural laws given for that field-sense perception, natural reasoning and scientific deductions-but in the new life it is faith that moves out and on and dares when human reason and natural limitations cloud the vision and drag the life down to the natural level.
The realm of truth and field of divine revelation hold many rational realities which cannot be demonstrated. Someone has so aptly said, “God thinks beyond geometry and wills existence beyond our cornfields.” In this life even, there are many things, necessary to the best in life, which must be taken or seized by belief (faith) if they are ever taken at all. We are justified when we have a strong distrust for human knowledge when it operates in fields outside its own. The natural realm-broad and unlimited—is its real field. Here science deals with matter and teaches us how to adapt ourselves more helpfully to the material order of daily living. Science deals with the material side of life and has no spiritual qualities for adaptation in the realm of the spirit. Therefore it can never speak with any real authority about spiritual truth. The whole Christian concept is based on revealed, spiritual truth, and such being so, it claims the right to speak on spiritual matters with authority. All the vital truths of our faith are given us by revelation rather than by reason. However, religious truth is reasonable, but it is not true that man can reach this religious truth by the use of reason alone.
The whole revelation concerning God, His nature and purpose, the plan for humanity etc. are things we could never know had not God revealed the same by His Spirit.
The Bible is not a text book on science. However, there is nothing there revealed concerning the natural phenomena which is contrary to true science. There is no quarrel between true science and revelation; the difficulty comes when one tries to reconcile only partial testimony or bits of scientific data with the completed truth as in the revelation given by God. When science pushes her research far enough and completes her findings and testimony there is no contradiction. They are one. When religion and science firmly stay within their own fields, each contributes to the enrichment of the other and both show forth the glory of God.
The element of faith is much like the sixth sense. It is God-given and is to be recognized. In the Christian experience there are doctrines and truths which we hold and rejoice in that are wholly spiritually discerned. That is, faith and the power of the Holy Spirit make as real ( and more real) to the inner consciousness of man, truths which quite elude the most subtle reasoning and defy natural communication. Here is where people who have little faith and have a strong scientific bent have a sad time.
It is as if I had a beautiful rose before me and kept saying, “O how sweet it smells! Just smell it.” And my questioning friend would answer, “Yes, I suppose you think so, but I don’t smell it. Just make a picture of the smell of it and I will believe it. Here is a pencil and paper; put it down in fact form, then I will believe it.” “O,” I say, “but you can’t do that; this is an odor or fragrance. If you want to use the optic nerve to discern it, you are quite wrong. You must use your olfactory nerve, or nose, if you please, and not your eyes, to enjoy it. Play the game honestly and as directions require and you will enjoy the fragrance too.” “O well,” says my friend, “you always did have an imagination and seemed rather impracticable, romantic and flighty. I am honest and a realist and would like to smell the rose too, but since you cannot demonstrate it in picture form so that I may see, I will not believe.” And so my poor dear friend passes by the joy of the sweet rose and the delightful fragrance because he will not use the faculty God has already given him. I cannot change the divine law and mechanics to meet his unwillingness, so he is left still wondering if there really is anything in this after all.
So as we start off in the first step, I am, remember that faith figures largely now and the sense life has to stay in its proper field and background. The Word of God is truth, the ultimate and final for us. We will believe that-whatever comes or goes. Here let us encourage ourselves with a few verses which teach us a line of identification.
May I help you? So many seem to know little of this fundamental truth. You must get some things settled in the beginning and abide by these facts or you will be swept off your feet by the contradictory emotions, reactions, disappointments, fresh revelations of self and a thousand and one other items and experiences we are bound to meet in this holy quest, this glorious adventure in “becoming.”
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
“But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” ( I Cor. 15:- 10 ).
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Cor. 5:17).
Paul, I believe, is teaching us a precious lesson as to our faith and power to reckon. God looks upon us in the new creation as “being dead to sin and alive unto God,” therefore we are to abide by what He says and not by what we feel. As long as there is no conscious failure or sin and we are abiding in Him and walking in His will we are to count or reckon ourselves just what He says we are. But man has lived so long under the power of sense perception, feelings and moods which cater to the natural life, he does only with difficulty maintain such a position. He finally learns that feelings are deceptive, fleeting and fluctuating. So in time he becomes weaned from these as far as depending upon them as a stimuli to believe or stand. The time God takes in weaning one from dependence upon emotional stimulus depends upon the person and his willingness to let go and trust God. Some seem never to learn this elementary lesson very well and consequently all along the Christian life there is difficulty.
Since the baptism of the Holy Spirit is usually accompanied by such pronounced emotional features it is hard for one thus anointed to learn this lesson. Some who have been in the experience for years seemingly know so little. They are still moving around and trying to do things in the flow of an emotional uplift. Or they are trying to keep up the emotional momentum of a past experience. Where the inspiration of the Spirit stops, the flesh begins ( of course religiously and piously). This sort of procedure to one who can see through it, is tragic and painful. Not knowing what it is all about, the poor soul is fearful of backsliding and “losing the anointing” if he does not keep up some such emotional stir, and so allows himself to drop down to a religious performance which is really pitiful. When a soul who begins to see through this snare, is honest enough to own up and desires deliverance it is hopeful. Many of them (on the side) come to me. They are afraid others will think they are back-slidden and will not understand them, so they come to me for a quiet, confidential talk. When I find one who is so tired (and figuratively speaking, his tongue hangs out) I am hopeful and rejoice. I see that he is near the exhaustion point of religious flesh and can probably be helped.
The process of weaning and spiritual adjustment is not pleasant, but it does yield delightful spiritual fruit to those who are willing to pay the price. Some, or rather an extensive emotional range and who have no teaching, suffer greatly.
May I help you here? Usually a crisis in Christian living, some definite experience or revelation is accompanied by an emotional reaction. This is an accompanying feature belonging to the experience and is of God. But remember, the emotional blessing is not the experience; the experience has to do with some definite dealing involving the will, surrender, confession or stand taken. The feeling and emotional uplift is so delightful and overwhelming that it is mistaken for the actual experience and the soul tries so hard to maintain the mood and forgets the essential which has to do with his will. Do not get into this snare. Let feelings come and let them go as they please, you just maintain the position you took which made the feelings possible. Learn to do this and God will bring you to a place where you are quite independent of your reactions and emotional status.
You may suffer dryness or a lack of spiritual feeling and God may test you in weaning you, but do not go back and try to stir up the emotions and try, 0 so hard, to recapture the old emotional mood. Some do this very thing and have a fine display of psychic phenomena. (It is sad that there is not much clear teaching along this line.) To do thus is not faith. When the Holy Spirit sees good to warm the heart and even give it a divine and heavenly visitation recorded in your emotional faculties, that is glorious. Enjoy His presence and all He may see good to bless you with, but never try (by even seemingly good technique) to recapture the uplift after it has served. Such a performance either in a Christian life or in an assembly has wrought untold havoc and sent many an honest, hungry soul from God and the lovely truth. There are churches where they do not think there is any power of God present or that souls are refreshed or fed unless they can bring the meeting up to a sort of climax of emotional vibration. They call this the anointing. How horrible and blasphemous! Such practice is most deadening to true spirituality. It keeps the keen edge of spiritual sensibility dulled down to almost an insensibility to true Holy Spirit movements. The absence of emotional manifestation is not a sign of sin, backsliding or failure. God may in His disciplinary measures see good to wean one for a long time from the department of sense and teach the soul to walk and count by faith. In the beginning, as a rule, God allows one to enjoy and work in the realm of conscious, blessing-feelings, joys, peace, etc. but in time He brings the honest soul out. That does not mean that he is never blest again. No! No, he is often, very often blest, but the soul is not dependent upon the frame or mood. He accepts the blessing as. it comes and lets it go when it has served its purpose. He simply moves on in God and does not think about being blest or not being blest.
Do not depend upon your emotional states, even when God-given, stand by faith upon the everlasting Word. Remember to look at yourself as God sees you-a new creature in Christ Jesus. As you do this the Holy Spirit has opportunity to unfold to you the potential qualities of the new life. How one is refreshed in the inner man by the sublime revelation! It is like a treasure long hidden and now brought to light. Instead of busying yourself too much with externalities which only in the end distract and deflect the soul, meditate upon the fundamental fact-“I am.” You will thus garrison your heart with strength and faith. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17). It is the Word of God concerning the new I am which reacts in faith. It builds for the coming tests and the storm of conflicting reports. May I help you here? Settle in your own heart as many of the fundamental facts of your new life in Christ as you can. Use them as definite, positive media in refreshing your heart and flooding your inner consciousness as rain refreshes the thirsty earth. “Think on these things.”
In the new creation a fuller revelation of “I am” brings one to a clearer understanding of what I mean by self-consciousness. Again may I help you? Do not confuse body-consciousness with self -consciousness. One becomes body-conscious through sense perception. His five senses report from the outer world and he becomes body-conscious. Animals are all body-conscious but they are not self -conscious. They lack the soul quality for this. Man is a trinity. Through the body he is world-conscious; through the soul he is self -conscious and through the spirit he is God-conscious. One may know about God and move all around in the realm of natural knowledge concerning God and may behold His manifestations but he does not know God by these media. Only as the Holy Spirit contacts the human spirit and uses the same does man know God. “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (I Cor. 2:14). “… The world by wisdom knew not God … " (I Cor. 1:21).
By self -consciousness I mean a consciousness of entity, and that in particular. That is, he is able to lift himself up from all surrounding impedimenta and distinguish his being and its relationship and possibilities from any and all other things. A fine horse is not so qualified. He cannot say, “I am a horse; I weigh so many hundred pounds; I can draw so many hundred pounds; my speed is thus.” No, all such reasoning and self-conscious data are out of his line. He abides under the structural law of a lower creation. This element of self-consciousness is characteristic of human personality, and is a part of the divine stamp. Animals are not persons and so do not have it.
As in the natural relations it takes the babe some time to come to self-consciousness, so does it in the spiritual life. This truth of personal discovery and identification in the natural order is beautifully expressed by Tennyson in his poem:
In Memoriam
The baby new to earth and sky,
What time his tender palm is prest
Against the circle of the breast,
Has never thought that “This is I:"
But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of “I,” and “me,”
And finds, “I am not what I see,
And other than the things I touch."
So rounds he to a separate mind
From whence clear memory may begin,
And thro' the frame that binds him in
His isolation grows defined.
Thus the babe comes or grows into a fuller and fuller consciousness of his true relations, obligations, and place in life. So is it in the spiritual life. God has so many babes who are truly born but are still “against the circle of the breast.” It is a beautiful and necessary place to be, but tragic if a soul remains a babe for forty or seventy years. The fatal thing here is that one can study, learn, preach, teach, serve, build churches and wear one’s self ragged “helping God” and still remain a babe. The process of discovery as to true identity is costly. The natural man shrinks from the discovery of self. The new man, or life, when truly built by the Spirit, rests upon the wreckage of the old. I do not mean that the old is the foundation-rather the old is wrecked at the base of the new. Who wants to be wrecked that he may be built? No one who still sees life through the vision of material sense and this world estimate, desires it. But one who sees past and unto the ultimate, welcomes the discovery and “process of becoming.”
Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-part pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never
Grudge the throe!
Robert Browning
The spirit-taught heart will understand this language. God is bringing spiritually minded people into a clearer self-consciousness that it may be swallowed up in a Christ-consciousness. The Holy Spirit longs to bring the heart into deeper and fuller knowledge and understanding of the character and nature of this new creation-a new life-consciousness. Here we learn to discriminate, to evaluate and make proper choices which end in spiritual life and fruitage. Only as the child learns to relate and adjust himself properly to the many phases of life, does he live. So only does one who will suffer the pains of spiritual adjustment, live in the new creation.