August 1931
T h e
K i n g ’ s
343
B u s i n e s s
KEPT SAFE HIS LIFE • • • By CHARLES G. TRUMBULL, Philadelphia, Pa.
if. —, h e late B ishop M oule , one of the few Prince Bishops of the Church of England, himself a consecrated Christian of true humility and at the same time of deep learning in the Word of God, sug gested a luminous translation for the latter part of the Scripture verse in Romans 5:10. This verse reads: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Bishop Moule translated those
of Keswick Grove, New Jersey, and the Western Kes wick, the question has already been asked and is likely to continue to be raised: “What about the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is that what is meant by the victorious life? Does the Christian enter into the victorious life when the baptism of the Holy Spirit has been received ?” Let us see, first, just what the New Testament teach ing is concerning the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Dr. White, the Editor of T h e K ing ’ s B usiness , has made
last four words, “kept safe in his life.” It is one of the rich “much mores” of the Bible and the gospel. All men by nature are enemies of God. God loved us while we were still enemies. It was the. death of His Son that reconciled us to Him. When we accepted that death as our life, we were saved. Then we were no longer enemies, but we be came God’s very children by the new birth. There follows a “much more” of the grace of God. Having been reconciled, having been chang ed from enemies and aliens to chil dren and friends of God, Christ does still more for us. “Much more, being reconciled, we shall be kept safe in his life.” Christ’s death saved us. His life keeps us safe. “Your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3.3). Wje are hearing, these d a y s , about the victorious life. What is meant by the expression? The question can be answered in many ways, all equally true, but it would be difficult to find a better answer than in Bishop Moule’s translation of our verse. The victorious life is the life that is kept safe in Christ’s life. How safe? Well, just how
very clear in these pages the scrip tural truth, as to this much-discussed question. The New Testament Epis tles plainly teach that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not “a second work of grace.” They make it plain that this baptism is not a blessing to be prayed for, to be sought, or to be waited for, by the Christian. For no one can be saved, no one can be a Christian, without the baptism of the Holy Spirit. “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one S p i r i t ” (1 Cor. 12:13). When Paul says “we” he means every be liever. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death” (Rom. 6:3) ? It was the Holy Spirit who baptized us into Christ and His death, the moment we received Christ as Saviour. No Christian, therefore, is to ask God to do some thing for him that God has already done. Every Christian has received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But not every Christian has, by surren der and faith, let God fill him with the Holy Spirit. We are never told,
DR. TRUMBULL Editor of The Sunday School Times
safe can a person expect to be if the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Lord of Glory, is making it His responsibility to protect and to keep that one ? The ques tion answers itself. Some one has well said, “Satan can not understand the omnipotence of a soul that is homed in God.” Certainly no t! For Satan tries in vain to get through to the soul whose home is God—and who stays home! That is why the Lord Jesus Christ counsels all of us who have received Him as Saviour and have been bap tized into Him by the Holy Spirit: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4). We are in Christ if He is our Saviour. We are to rest there, abide there, by simple faith. That is the victorious life. At the Victorious Life Conferences being held this summer on the Pacific coast, from San Diego to Vic toria, under the auspices of the Victorious Life Testimony
in the Epistles, to be baptized by the Holy Spirit-ffor that has been done for all of us who are believers. But we are told, we are commanded, to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). This exhortation shows that it may or may not have been obeyed by the individual Christian. The victorious life, therefore, is of course the life that has been baptized by the Holy Spirit, for it is the only normal Christian life. It has been called “the life that is Christ.” This expression is based on Paul’s word in Philippians 1:21: “To me to live is Christ.” Christ is the life of every believer. “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life (1 John 5:12). Christ’s life is always vic torious. As we yield ourselves unto Him as those that are alive from the dead (Rom. 6:13), and present our bodies to Him, a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1), and then
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