172
April 1929
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
Where in the Old Testament had he found any such promise? If the writer of the psalm was Ezra, or some other man of that time, he might have known of the promise of God, through Jeremiah, about that new cove nant. But that is not the first promise of the kind in the Word of God. At the very beginning of their national history, before they had entered the promised land, God told them what He would do for them—that, after they had learned through bitter experience what utter failures they were because of the condition of the heart, if they would look to Him in humility and repentance, He would do a work within them which would cause them to love Him with all their heart, and with all their soul (Deut. 30:1-6). The soul is that part of “the inner man” which is the seat of the desires, feelings, emotions. It is because the inner man is wrong that the outer man does wrong. Also men are “alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness [or hardness] of their heart” (Eph. 4:18). This is the reason why that first covenant failed. God knew that they would fail, and told them so from the beginning; but they took upon themselves the obligations of the covenant. It was the only way they could learn what they would not be lieve—that “their heart was not right, neither were they steadfast in His covenant” (Psa. 78:37). So a new covenant, to be any more effective in saving man from sin than the first covenant, must have divine help in it for this weakness of man. And that is just what God provided in the new covenant which He promised through the prophet Jeremiah, and which is expounded in the epistle to the Hebrews. “For TH IS IS THE COVENANT that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord : I will put my laws into their mind [that will make them know what the will of God is], and on their heart also will I write them [that will correct the desire to do what is contrary to the will of God] : and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people : ................ for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more” (Heb. 8:10-12). T h e N ew C ovenant Notice particularly and carefully here that the differ ence1between the old and the new covenants is not a differ ence in' thé law o f God, but in the method of the adminis tration of that law. And the law referred to is the moral law, not “the law of commandments contained in ordi nances” (Eph. 2:15 with Heb. 9:9, 10). Those ordi nances of the law were typical of “the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands,” and the “one sacrifice for sins forever” (Heb. 9:11, 12 and 10:12-14) ; and when that perfect sacrifice was offered once for all, the others ceased to be offered, because they had been fulfilled for us by “the Lamb of God.” But “the RIGHTEOUSNESS of the law” is to be “ fulfilled IN us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit” (Rom. 8 :4). The moral law, just because it is moral, is immutable, like the character of God, for, indeed, it is the expression of the will of God. “Right eousness and justice are the foundation of his throne” (Ps. 89:14 and 97:2) ; that is, they are fundamental principles of the kingdom of God, the government of God ; they are necessary for the well-being of man. So man must be made actually righteous in his conduct; and God’s plan for doing that is to make the man righteous within. ' Paul says that it is to be done by our “walking after the Spirit.” In another place (2 Cor. 3:3) he tells the
believers that they are epistles of Christ, w ritte n ............... with the Spirit of thé living G o d ........................ in tablets that are hearts of flesh.” It is the Spirit of God, then, who writes the law of God upon heart and mind. And that law is first made a living thing in our Lord Jesus Christ, and then it is transmitted to us—He Hiiriself is made to live in us in the Spirit. Just as the human body, when in a healthy condition, is made to move in perfect harmony—as a unit—every member of the body being directed and energized by the head through the spinal cord with its multitudinous ramifications to every tiniest part of the body; so the Holy Spirit makes the body of Christ one with the Head—Christ Himself—and causes His life to energize and move every member, when the Spirit has perfect freedom of movement in all the mem bers. This is what walking by the Spirit means. Galatians 5 :16-25 is the great New Testament passage which deals with this important matter of walking by the Spirit. This is: M in istry of th e S pirit The Christian life is a supernatural life. It is the im- partation to us of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Second Adam, the Head of the new race of men who are to be the future citizens of the kingdom of God on earth. We are sinners by nature because we par take of the spirit of the first man, Adam. We are to be holy by a new spiritual nature, because we get such a new nature from the second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ. And all this great and wonderful transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit. And He does that work in us as we learn to “walk by the Spirit.” This is why there can be no true Christian living without the Holy Spirit indwelling, controlling, energizing, moving the life. Any thing else, however sincere, is at best only an imitation. God’s ideal life for each and every one of His children is simply expressed by the apostle Paul in Galatians 2 :20, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.” And in Colossians 1 :27 he says that “the riches of the glory of the' mystery” of the gospel is “CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory.” Thjs is something which looksi simple at first thought, but as it is accepted and applied, thé soul learns that there is a depth to it which had never been imagined. This is what the shedding of the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ made possible for us. We enter into this new covenant—become sons of the new covenant—when we turn unto God in true repentance and by faith accept the provision He has made for us in the Lord Jesus Christ—that is, “believe on the Lord— Jesus—-Christ.” That means the accepting of Him to be unto us what God means by “Lord” and “Jesus” and “Christ.” Let no one think that any one experience, or many, which he may have received, however wonderful and blessed, is all that God has purposed for him. Until he is perfectly “conformed to the image of His Son,” the expression of God’s will fully written in the.mind and upon the heart, the work of the new covenant is not com pleted. But as you “present yourselves unto God, as those who are alive from the dead” (Rom. 6:13 and 12:1, 2). “you may PROVE what is that good, and wellpleasing, and perfect will of God.”
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