And the same thing is presented, it seems to me, in Hebrews 12:22-24, where these two concepts are united: "But ye are come unto mount Sion," (Who is come? Those who have accepted Christ as Savior and are still in this life) "and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect."
Here we are told that we are now united with these people, and this of course leads us to the doctrine of the mystical union of the Church (those living now and those who have died) but I am not here thinking of it as a "doctrine." I am thinking of the reality: that God ties us in at the present time to the reality of those who are already in this other situation. They are there, they see Christ face to face, they are dead, and we have the earnest of the Holy Spirit.
With this in mind let us think of Galatians 2:20, which we have already looked at several times in this study: "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" (that is, before I have died) "I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
This verse falls into three different portions: "I am crucified with Christ" (a break) "nevertheless I live," (a break) "yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."
Here we are told that Christ really lives in me, if I have accepted Christ as my Savior. In other words, we have the words of Jesus to the thief on the cross, "Today thou wilt be with me in paradise." Christ can say "Today thou wilt be with me in paradise," and mean it. To die is to be with the Lord. It is not just an idea, it is a reality. But at the same time, Christ, the same Christ, gives the promise just as definitely that when I have accepted Christ as my Savior, he lives in me. They are equal reality. They are two streams of present reality, both equally promised. The Christian dead are already with Christ now, and Christ really lives in the Christian. Christ lives in me. The Christ who was crucified, the Christ whose work is finished, the Christ who is glorified now, has promised (John 15) to bring forth fruit in the Christian, just as the sap of the vine brings forth the fruit in the branch.
Here is true Christian mysticism. Christian mysticism is not the same as non-Christian mysticism, but I would insist that it is not a lesser mysticism. Indeed, eventually it is a deeper mysticism, for it is not based merely on contentless experience, but on historic, space-time reality-on propositional truth. One is not asked to deny the reason, the intellect, in true Christian mysticism. And there is to be no loss of personality, no loss of the individual man. In Eastern mysticism-for which the West is searching so madly now that it has lost the sense of history, of content, and the truth of biblical facts-there is always finally a loss of the personality. It cannot be otherwise in their framework. You will remember the story of Shiva, who is one of the manifestations of the Everything. He came and loved a mortal woman. Shiva put his arms around this woman in his love, and immediately she disappeared and he became neuter. This is Eastern mysticism. It is mounded in the loss of personality of the individual. Not so Christian mysticism. Christian mysticism is communion with Christ. It is Christ bringing forth fruit through me, the Christian, with no loss of personality and without my being used as a stick or a stone, either.
In many passages in the Bible, the relationship of Christians to Jesus Christ is described in terms of the bride and the bridegroom. Who is this "bridegroom,"-my bridegroom? He is the Christ who has died, whose work is finished, who is raised, who is ascended, who is glorified. It is this Christ. It is not simply an idea. It is the Christ who was seen after the resurrection, the Christ who was seen by Stephen, by Paul, the Christ who was seen by John; it is this Christ who is my bridegroom. It can be properly said that in this sense we are all female. Christ is the bridegroom; we-that is, the Christians-are the bride.
"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord"(Romans 6:11).
In this section dealing with sanctification, beginning with Romans 5, these words "through Christ" run throughout like the string on which all the beads are to be placed.
"Therefore being justified" (in the past) "by faith we have peace with God" (in the present) "through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1).
"0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 7:24, 25).
"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us" (Romans 8:37).
Christ is with those in paradise now. But Christ promises -the same Christ, with the same reality-to the Christian that he will bring forth fruit through us in this life now. The power of the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ will bring forth this fruit through us now.
Now, as we come to the end of our study of the basic considerations of the Christian life and the true spirituality, and before we proceed into further considerations, let us finish with three points in mind.
First, the answers of the how: it is not to be done simply in our own strength. Neither is it only acting in practice upon the reality that in God's sight, as we are in Christ, judicially we are already dead and raised, as wonderful as that is. That must never be minimized. It is a real thing that must be comprehended. Judicially this is a reality, because Christ has died, and Christ has paid. We are not trying to make something that does not have a reality. But it is more than just acting upon this fact, even though it is so wonderful and should fill us with adoration. It is much more. The how is that the glorified Christ will do it through us. There is an active ingredient: he will be the doer.
Second, though we will enlarge on this point later, there is the agency of the Holy Spirit. "And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).
What he is saying here is that you will not be ashamed experientially when you begin to act upon the reality, upon the teaching, as it has been presented. Why? "Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us."
"But now we were delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter" (Romans 7:6).
What makes the difference? This is the Holy Spirit, not just a "new idea." It is not to be in our own strength. There is a Holy Spirit who has been given to us to make this "service" possible.
In Romans 1-8 at the end of the section on the development of the Christian's sanctification, the work of the Holy Spirit, the agent of the whole Trinity, is brought into full force in the 8th chapter.
In Romans 8:13 this is drawn together in this great central chapter of the work of the Holy Spirit for and to the Christian. "For (because) if you live after the flesh ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." The Holy Spirit is specifically introduced to us here as the agent of the power and the person of the glorified Christ. There is not enough strength in ourselves, but placed before us is the power and the work of the glorified Christ through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Surely this is exactly what Christ meant when he said: "I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you" (John 14:18).
Though we cannot develop it at length, 2 Corinthians 13:14, which we usually use as a benediction, makes the same point: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God (the Father), and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all." The communion, or the communication, of the Holy Spirit speaks of the Holy Spirit as the agent of the Trinity, wherein Christ could promise in John 14 not only that Christ would not leave us as orphans, but that both he and the Father would come to us. Surely, as we look at the book of Acts, we find in the early Church not a group of strong men laboring tog
ether, but the work of the Holy Spirit bringing to them the power of the crucified and glorified Christ. It must be so for us also.
Third, this is not to be merely passive on our part. As we have seen already, it is not to be on the basis of our own works, or our own energy, any more than our justification is on the basis of our own works and energy. But again, as in the case of justification, I am not a passive stick or stone.
The illustration which brings this to me with force is Mary's response to the angel (Luke 1:38). The angel has come to Mary, and says: Mary, you are going to give birth to the long-promised Messiah. This was a unique promise, and unrepeatable. There is something totally unique here: the birth of the eternal second Person of the Trinity into this world. What is her response? The Holy Spirit, we are told, is to cause a conception in her womb. It seems to me that she could have made three responses. She was a Jewish girl, probably 17 or 18 years of age, and in love with Joseph. There is no reason to think of him as an old man, as the painters love to paint, no reason whatsoever. They do that because this was a Roman Catholic mentality, as though Joseph and Mary had no children of which they were both the parents, after Christ's birth.
Here she is, a Jewish girl, 17 or 18 years old, in love with Joseph, in a normal historic situation, with normal emotions; and suddenly she is told she is going to give birth to a child. She could have rejected the idea and said, "I do not want it; I want to withdraw; I want to run. What would Joseph say?" And we know what Joseph thought later. Humanly we could not blame her if she had felt this way. But she did not say this.
Second-and this is our danger at such a point as we now are in the study of the Christian life--she could have said, "I now have the promises, so I will exert my force, my character, and my energy, to bring forth the promised thing. I have the promise. Now I will bring forth a child without a man." But with this response she never would have had the child. She could not bring forth a child without a man, by her own will, any more than any other girl could do.
But there was a third thing she could say. It is beautiful, it is wonderful. She says: "Behold, the bondmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word."
There is an active passivity here. She took her own body, by choice, and put it into the hands of God to do the thing that he said he would do, and Jesus was born. She gave herself, with her body, to God. In response to the promise, yes; but not to do it herself. This is a beautiful, exciting, personal expression of a relationship between a finite person and the God she loves. Now this is absolutely unique and must not be confused; there is only one virgin birth. Nevertheless, it is an illustration of our being the bride of Christ. We are in the same situation in that we have these great and thrilling promises we have been considering, and we are neither to think of ourselves as totally passive, as though we had no part in this, as though God had stopped dealing with us now as men; nor are we to think we can do it ourselves. If we are to bring forth fruit in the Christian life, or rather, if Christ is to bring forth this fruit through us by the agency of the Holy Spirit, there must be a constant act of faith, of thinking: Upon the basis of your promises I am looking for you to fulfill them, 0 my Jesus Christ; bring forth your fruit through me into this poor world.
That is what I mean by active passivity, and it is no longer a dead word, I trust; it is beautiful. There should be the sound of trumpets, and the clanging of cymbals; there should be the psalm upon the many-stringed instruments. We are not irrevocably caught. We do not have to beat ourselves, or be dejected. "Be it unto me according to thy word."
So now we stand before two streams of reality: those who have died and are with Christ now; and we, who have the "earnest" of the Holy Spirit now and so, upon the reality of the finished work of Christ have access-not in theory, but in reality-to the power of the crucified, risen, glorified Christ, by the agency of the Holy Spirit.
True spirituality is not achieved in our own energy. The "how" of the kind of life we have spoken of, the true Christian life, true spirituality, is Romans 6:11: "Reckon ye also yourselves" (there is the faith) then the negative aspect: "to be dead indeed unto sin"; but then the positive: "but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." This is the "how," and there is no other. It is the power of the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ through the agency of the Holy Spirit, by faith.
The Supernatural
Universe 5
Our generation is overwhelmingly naturalistic. There is an almost complete commitment to the concept of the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. This is its distinguishing mark. If we are not careful, even though we say we are biblical Christians and supernaturalists, nevertheless the naturalism of our generation tends to come in upon us. It may infiltrate our thinking without our recognizing its coming, like a fog creeping in through a window opened only half an inch.(As soon as this happens, Christians begin to lose the reality of their Christian lives) As I travel about and speak in many countries, I am impressed with the number of times I am asked by Christians about the loss of reality in their Christian lives. Surely this is one of the greatest, and perhaps the greatest reason for a loss of reality: that while we say we believe one thing, we allow the spirit of the naturalism of the age to creep into our thinking, unrecognized. All too often the reality is lost because the "ceiling" is down too close upon our heads. It is too low. And the "ceiling" which closes us in is the naturalistic type of thinking.
Now the Christian's spirituality, as we wrote of it in the previous chapters, does not stand alone. It is related to the unity of the Bible's view of the universe. This means that we must understand-intellectually, with the windows open-that the universe is not what our generation says it is, seeing only the naturalistic universe. This relates directly to what we have been dealing with in the earlier chapters. For example, we have said that we are to love God enough to say, "Thank you" even for the difficult things. We must immediately understand, as we say this, that this has no meaning whatsoever unless we live in a personal universe in which there is a personal God who objectively exists.
Later we touched upon the same thing when we saw that in the normal perspective it is very difficult to say "no" to things and to self, in the things-mentality and the self-mentality of men, especially in the twentieth century. But we saw that on the Mount of Transfiguration we are brought face to face with a supernatural universe. Here we find Moses and Elijah speaking to Christ as he is glorified. And we observed that this supernatural universe is not a far-off universe. Quite the contrary: there is a perfect continuity, as in normal life. So (in Luke 9:37) the day after these things had occurred, Jesus and the disciples went down the mountain and entered into the normal activities of life. Indeed, the normal sequence was continuing while they were there on the mountain. There is a perfect example of the temporal and spatial relationship here. As they climbed up the mountain, there was no place where they passed into the philosophic "other." And if they had had watches upon their wrists, these watches would not have stopped at some point: they would have ticked away. And when they came down, it was the next day and the normal sequence has proceeded. Here we find the supernatural world in relationship to the normal sequence and spatial relationship of this present world.
We have also considered Christ's redemptive death, which has no meaning whatsoever outside the relationship of a super natural world. The only reason the words "redemptive death" have any meaning is that there is a personal God who exists and, more than that, has a character. He is not morally neutral When man sins against that character, which is the law of the universe, he is guilty, and God will judge that man on the basis of true moral guilt In such a setting, the words "the redemptive death of Christ" have meaning, otherwise they cannot.
Now we must remember what we are talking about: the fact that the true Christian life, as we have examined it, is not to be separated from the unity of the full biblical teaching; it is not to be abstracted from the unity of the Bible's emphasis on the supernatural world. Th
is makes sense of the biblical image of Christians, face to face with this supernatural world, as the bride, linking themselves to Christ, the bridegroom, so that he, the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ, may bring forth fruit through them. This is no longer a surnrising doctrine.
Yet I have a feeling that even people who have been well taught about salvation, and many other aspects of Christian life or doctrine, often find the idea of Christ the bridegroom bringing forth fruit through Christians as his bride a rather exotic and surprising or at least, abstract, doctrine. But surely this cannot be a surprising doctrine, if it is not isolated from the teaching of the Bible concerning the supernaturalness of the total universe in which we live.
This is the Bible's message, and when we see it so, and are in this framework, rather than the naturalistic one (which comes in so easily upon us) the teaching that Christ as the bridegroom will bring forth fruit through me ceases to be strange. The Bible insists that we live in reality in a supernatural universe. But if we remove the objective reality of the supernatural universe in any area, this great reality of Christ the bridegroom bringing forth fruit through us immediately falls to the floor, and all that Christianity is at such a point is a psychological and sociological aid, a mere tool. As soon as we remove the supernaturalness of the universe, all we have left is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in which religion is to be simply a sociological tool for the future. In Julian Huxley's concept of romantic evolutionary humanism, religion has a place, not because there is any truth in it, but because in the strange evolutionary formation, man as he now is simply needs it. So it must be administered to him, because he needs it. Remove the supernatural from the universe, in thinking and in action, and there is nothing left but Honest to God, which deals only with the fact of anthropology, and has nothing to say to questions of the reality of communication with God. We are merely shut up to anthropology, psychology, and sociology, and all that we say about religion in general-and Christianity specifically falls to the ground except as it relates to a mere psychological mechanism. All the reality of Christianity rests upon the reality of the existence of a personal God, and the reality of the supernatural view of the total universe.