When we accept Christ as our Savior we are immediately in a new relationship with God the Father. God the Father is immediately our Father. He is "Abba' =Daddy-to us. But, of course, if this is so, we should be experiencing in this life the Father's fatherliness. When I accept Christ as my Savior I also come into a new relationship with God the Son. He is at once my "vine," my "bridegroom." Now this raises a question. If I, as a branch and as a bride, am not bringing forth the fruit one would expect from him, who is my vine and my bridegroom, what is wrong?
"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; in order that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, in order that we should bring forth fruit unto God" (Romans 7:4).
Notice the double "in order that": first, that we should be married to Christ; second, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. But with that must go the very sober warning:
"Neither yield ye your members as instruments" (tools, weapons) "of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members" (yourselves as a unit and in part) "as instruments of righteousness unto God" (Romans 6:13).
As a Christian I can yield myself to one or the other, in order that I might be used by one or the other, as a weapon in the warfare that is being fought.
"For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not to whom ye yield yourselves slaves to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of teaching which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the slaves of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants (slaves) to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free as far as righteousness is concerned. What fruit were you having then," (before you were a Christian) "in those things of which you are now ashamed? Because the end of those things is death" (Romans 6:14-21).
This passage points out our high calling, to put ourselves by choice in the arms of our rightful lover, our bridegroom, in order to bring forth his fruit in the external world. But it also warns us that it is possible, even after we are Christians, to put ourselves into the arms of someone else and bring forth his fruit in this world. It is possible as a Christian to be bringing forth the same kind of fruit now as we did before we were Christians. Why? Because we are yielding ourselves to the wrong one, specifically to that old master of ours, the devil, Satan. Let us repeat it, very gently, but with a keen edge: it is possible for me, as a Christian, to bring forth the child of someone else instead of my rightful lover, instead of my bridegroom. That is, to bring forth into the external world the fruit of the devil. As an illustration, imagine a married couple of one race, both of the one color of skin. Suddenly the wife brings forth a child clearly of another race. All the world would know that she has been unfaithful to her proper mate. So it is with us. If I as a Christian am not bringing forth the fruit that one would expect, the fruit of Christ, there is spiritual unfaithfulness on my part. There is spiritual adultery in my life. And when we see it this way, the word "unfaithful" takes on a very special and clear significance, for faith is the instrument by which we bear the fruit of our risen Christ. So the word "faithless" has a very pointed meaning. If I do not have faith toward Christ I am unfaithful toward him, and this is faithlessness.
Now to go on to the third step in my new relationship. When I have accepted Christ as my Savior, I am also immediately in a new relationship to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in me, as the agent of the whole Trinity. Now the fruit of the Spirit is clearly delineated in the Bible: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law" (Galatians 5:22, 23).
The Scripture is equally clear about the works of the flesh: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murder, drunkenness, revellings, and such like (Galatians 5:19-21a).
The Holy Spirit is the agent of the whole Trinity. He is the agent of the crucified, the raised, the glorified Christ. If I am bringing forth something other than the fruit of the Spirit, the only reason is that I have grieved the Holy Spirit who is our Divine Guest. Charles Hodge expresses it like this: "The great distinction of a true Christian is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. How careful should he be, lest anything in his thoughts or feelings would be offensive to this Divine Guest!" The Holy Spirit is a Person, but knowing that he is a Person should remind us that he can be grieved, that he can be made sad. So in Ephesians 4:30 we are told: "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."
Do not make sad the Divine Guest who lives in you. If you are a true Christian, you are sealed by him to the day of redemption. It is by his indwelling that our continuing salvation is guaranteed to us. Let us not grieve him, make him sad.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:19; we have the command: "Quench not the Spirit."
When we grieve him, we push aside the one who is the agent to us of the work of Christ for our present life. On the basis of the finished, passive work of Christ-that is, his suffering on the cross-and on the basis of the active obedience of Christ that is, keeping the Law perfectly through his lifethe fruits are there. They are there to flow out through the agency of the Holy Spirit through us into the external world. The fruits are normal; not to have them is not to have the Christian life which should be considered usual. There are oceans of grace which wait. Orchard upon orchard waits, vineyard upon vineyard of fruit waits. There is only one reason why they do not flow out through the Christian's life, and that is that the instrumentality of faith is not being used. This is to quench the Holy Spirit. When we sin in this sense, we sin twice: we sin in the sin, and this is terrible, as it is against the Law and the character of God himself, our Father; but at the same time we sin by omission, because we have not raised the empty hands of faith for the gift that is there.
In the light of the structure of the total universe; in the light of our calling to exhibit the existence and character of God between the ascension and the second coming; in the light of the terrible price of the cross, whereby all the present and future benefits of salvation were purchased on our behalf-in the light of all this, the real sin of the Christian is not to possess his possessions, by faith. This is the real sin.
"But whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14-23b). The sin here is in not raising the empty hands of faith. Anything that is not brought forth from faith is sin. When I am not allowing this fruit, which has been purchased at such a price, to flow forth through me I am unfaithful, in the deep sense of not believing God. When we understand this, certainly we must say: May God forgive us. The Christian life is a thing of joy, but it should also have the understanding of sorrow, if we compare what could be with what is: the poverty, when riches are offered and when we have brought forth the fruit of the Lord's enemy, the devil, instead of the fruit of our lover, our Lord.
There are two main reasons why we may not be bringing forth the fruit we should. It may be because of ignorance, because we may never have been taught the meaning of the work of Christ for our present lives. There are five possible "ignorances" in this area. First, the Christian may have been taught how to be justified but never taught the present meaning of the work of Christ for him. Second, he may have been taught to become a Christian through the instrumentality of faith, but then he may have been left, as though from that point on the Christian life has to be lived in hi
s own strength. Third, he may have been taught the opposite. That is, that having accepted Christ, in some antinomian way it does not now matter how he lives. Fourth, he may have been taught some kind of second blessing, which would make him perfect in this life when he receives it. This the Bible does not teach. And therefore he just waits hopelessly, or tries to act upon that which is not. Fifth, he may never have been taught that there is a reality of faith to be acted on consciously after justification. This last point is the point of ignorance of many who stand in the orthodox and historic stream of the Reformation.
Because of any of these ignorances, the Christian may not "possess his possessions" in this present life. But when a man does learn the meaning of the work of Christ in the present life, a new door is open to, him. And this new door then seems to be so wonderful that often it gives the Christian, as he begins to act upon the knowledge of faith, the sense of something that is as new as was his conversion. And it has been true for many of us that at a certain point, after we have been Christians for a long time, suddenly through the teaching of the Bible-directly or through someone teaching us- we have seen the meaning of the work of Christ and the blood of Jesus Christ for our present life, and a new door opens for us. So what is needed is the knowledge of the meaning of the work of Christ in our present life, for our present life, and then for us to act upon it in faith.
However, we may know the doctrine by mental assent, without making the doctrine ours: and that is the other reason we do not bring forth the fruit that we should. In the last analysis it is never doctrine alone that is important. It is always doctrine appropriated that counts. We can see this in the case of justification. There are many men, unhappily, who have heard the gospel and know the gospel, but do not take Christ as their Savior. In such a case a man has the knowledge, but it means nothing to him, because he has not taken it. It may be so with us in this matter of our present life. We may know the truth, we may have the knowledge, but it has not been appropriated, and so it will not mean anything to us in practice, and the fruit will not be born. But we do not need to be either ignorant or confused. If we are truly Christians, we know how we were justified when we became Christians. The practice of sanctification is very much parallel to what we know from justification. In other words, if I am a Christian at all, I have been justified, and thinking back to my justification, all I have to do is to see the parallelisms between justification and the Christian life. When I see these, there is no reason either to be ignorant or confused, because there are these very definite parallels.
In justification the basis is the finished work of Jesus Christ; in sanctification it is the finished work of Christ. In justification we must see, acknowledge, and act upon the fact that we cannot save ourselves. In sanctification we must see, acknowledge, and act upon the fact that we cannot live the Christian life in our own strength, or in our own goodness.
In justification the instrument by which we receive the free gift of God is faith, which believes God as he has given us his promises in the Bible. In sanctification the instrument by which we receive the free gift of God is faith, which believes God as he has given us his promises in the Bible. It is exactly the same thing. There is one difference between the practice of justification and sanctification. As justification deals with our guilt, and sanctification deals with the problem of the power of sin in our lives as Christians, justification is once for all, and the Christian life is moment by moment. There is a difference in that one deals with the guilt of my sin, and the other deals with the power of sin in my life.
If we are Christians, we have understood and acted upon the finished work of Christ once for all at our justification, and our guilt is gone for ever. Now let us understand and act upon the practice of that same work moment by moment in our present lives.
Let me repeat: the only difference in the practice is that in justification it is once for all, and the Christian life is lived moment by moment. The Christian life is acting moment by moment on the same principle, and in the same way, as I acted at the moment of my justification.
But let us notice that from another perspective, even at this point it is not really different, because life is only a succession of moments, one moment at a time. When we say "moment by moment," we are dealing in practice with a succession of single, historical moments. No one lives his whole life at a time. This is another of these places where the existentialists have made a very accurate observation. Life is not a once-for-all thing. It is a series of moments. So when I talk about living the Christian life moment by moment, I can only live it in practice one moment at a time, just as my justification took place in one moment. There is no other way to do it. In this sense, the difference is not absolute between the two. Nobody can live except moment by moment, and only one moment at a time. History is like a knife-edge, razor sharp. God has made sequence to be real, and the present is the present to me, the future is the future, and the past is the past.
So we must believe God's promises at this one moment in which we are. Consequently, in believing God's promises, we apply them-the present meaning of the work of Christ for the Christian-for and in this one moment. If you only can see that, everything changes. As we believe God for this moment, the Holy Spirit is not quenched. And through his agency, the risen and glorified Christ, as the bridegroom of the bride, the vine, brings forth his fruit through us, at this moment. This is the practice of active passivity. And it is the only way anybody can live; there is no other way to live but moment by moment.
In speaking of "active passivity" we may again use Mary as an example. Mary, who had the angel's promise that she was to bring forth the long-promised Messiah, believed God and put herself as a bond-servant in the hands of God, for him to use her body in bringing forth the baby Jesus, virgin born. She was passive, in that she could not cause the birth of the child, but she was active in that in faith she was obedient, and gave herself to God. Now then, notice that she did this in a moment.
It does not follow that Mary was always faithful. As a matter of fact, as we read the Gospels, there is good reason to be sure that later she was not always in the same condition of active passivity as she was at that one moment when she said: "Be it unto me according to thy will."
So for Mary, too, it was at that one moment. And so it must be for us. We accept Christ as Savior at one moment and our guilt is gone on the basis of the value of the finished work of Jesus Christ. But after we become Christians, the moments proceed, the clock continues to tick; and in every moment of time, our calling is to believe God, raise the empty hands of faith, and let fruit flow out through us.
Now we have spoken of faith, so let us pause here. Living in the second half of the twentieth century, we must keep on saying what faith is, in the biblical sense. Christian faith is never faith in faith. Christian faith is never without content. Christian faith is never a jump in the dark. Christian faith is always believing what God has said. And Christian faith rests upon Christ's finished work on the cross.
The reality of living by faith as though we were already dead, of living by faith in open communion with God, and then stepping back into the external world as though we are already raised from the dead, this is not once for all, it is a matter of moment-by-moment faith, and living moment by moment. This morning's faith will never do for this noon. The faith of this noon will never do for supper time. The faith of supper time will never do for the time of going to bed. The faith of midnight will never do for the next morning. Thank God for the reality for which we were created, a moment-by-moment communication with God himself. We should indeed be thankful because the moment-by-moment quality brings the whole thing to the size which we are, as God has made us.
This being the case, it is obvious that there is no mechanical solution to true spirituality or the true Christian life. Anything that has the mark of the mechanical upon it is a mistake. It is not possible to say, read so many of the chapters of the Bible every day, and you will have this much sanctification
. It is not possible to say, pray so long every day, and you will have a certain amount of sanctification. It is not possible to add the two together and to say, you will have this big a piece of sanctification. This is a purely mechanical solution, and denies the whole Christian position. For the fact is that the Christian life, true spirituality, can never have a mechanical solution. The real solution is being cast up into the moment-by-moment communion, personal communion, with God himself, and letting Christ's truth flow through me through the agency of the Holy Spirit.
Let us notice the place to which we have come. It is precisely what we would expect in the light of the total unity of the Bible's most basic teaching. The most basic teaching of the Bible is that God exists, and what he is, and the corollary of what man is as made in God's own image. We live in a personal universe, and not in an impersonal one. God exists, God is personal; we are personal, as we have been made in the image of God, and our relationship to God is to be personal, not mechanical. We are not machines, we are not plants, we are not mere animals, but men, created in the image of God-rational and moral. When we were created, we were created for a purpose. And the purpose of our creation, in which all our subsidiary purposes fit, is to be in a personal relationship to God, in communion with him, in love, by choice, the creature before the Creator.
But sin destroyed this. The creature tried to be on the same level as the Creator; the finite sought to be placed on the same level as the infinite. And now, when we are saved on the basis of the finished work of Christ, our guilt is gone and we are returned to this proper relationship, not in a mechanical sense, but in a personal relationship of communion.
So modern man is struggling properly when he is struggling with this basic question, as to the problem of personality and communication. According to the Scripture, this struggle is at the right point: not the point of a few superficial taboos, a few superficial conformities, but of the tremendous problem of personality. The Bible's answer to the problem is that the central communication, which makes all the other communications meaningful, is the communication of the Creator and the creature, which is restored when I have accepted Christ as my Savior and my guilt is gone.