L I GHT ON PUZZLING PASSAGES a n d PROBLEMS By R. A. TORREY
after obedience to the law o f God, he made another discovery, a discovery of “the law o f the Spirit o f life in Christ Jesus.” And that law read this way, “What you cannot do (keep the law o f God) because o f the weakness o f the flesh, the Holy Spirit can do in you, and will do if you cease walking after the flesh, and surrender your life to His control and empowerment. When you thus “walk after the Spirit” “ the ordinance o f the law (i. e., Xvhat the law requires)” shall be “ fulfilled” in you. The one who “Walks by the Spirit,” does not “ fulfil the lust o f the flesh,” but keeps the law o f God (see Galatians 5:16). Is it contrary to God’s will for a believer to go in debt? There is just one book that was given to us for the purpose o f revealing God’s will. O f course, that book is the Bible. The Bible says very definitely and dis tinctly, in Romans 13:8, “ Owe no man any thing, save to love one another.” I can make nothing out o f that, without doing violence to the plain meaning o f the words, but that a Christian should not run in debt one penny to anyone. If a child o f God will take his stand that he will obey God in everything, and trust God to take Care o f him while he obeys Him, he has God’s promise that all the needed things that “the Gentiles seek” and worry over will be sup plied to him (Matt. 6:33, note context). This does not mean that he will live in luxury, nor that there will never be any testings o f his faith; but it does mean that what he really needs will be supplied with out his disobeying God by running into debt.
I would greatly appreciate your inform ing me through “Puzzling , Passages?’ if the Greek word translated “Spirif ~in John 3 :3 is the same word translated "wind" in John 3 : 8 . It is precisely the same word, and fur thermore the Greek verb translated “bloweth” in John 3 :8 is from the same foot. Kindly explain the meaning of Rom. 8 : 3 , 4 : "For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sin ful flesh and fo r sin, condemned sin in the flesh; ■that the requirement of the law might he fulfilled in us, who walk hot after the flesh, but after the Spirit." T o get the full meaning o f these verses they must be read in the connection in which they'are found in the Epistle to the Romans, especially verses 9-24 o f the previ ous chapter. In 'those verses Paul tells how he was brought face to face with the law o f God, and, seeing that it was “ holy, and righteous, and good,” he went about to keep that law ; but he soon discovered that while there was this law o f God outside of him, which was “holy, and righteous, and good,” and which he purposed to keep, there was another law within him, “ the law o f sin and o f death,” and that law read this way, “the good that you would do, you cannot do, and the evil that you would not do, you must keep right on doing.” Then came a struggle on Paul’s part to keep the law o f God, but he failed utterly, until at last in despair he cried, “Wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me out o f this body o f death?” When Paul thus got to the end o f himself, and o f his self efforts
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