The guilt of a lifetime is often learned by the convicted soul, in an incredibly short space of time. Drowning men, who have been recovered, have said, that like a flash of light, their lives stood out before them; and the forgotten sins, which years before have been committed, seemed in one moment to rise before them, in their terrible category. As the language of “Moses, the man of God,” it would be: “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance” (Psa. 90). The dead conscience awakes, quickened under the convicting rays of God’s light, and in a moment we stand before One who told us all things that ever we did.
When this is so, excuses are of no avail: no palliation is offered now. A man finds his soul laid bare, in the presence of infinite holiness. Hitherto, the conscience may have been asleep, with no thought of guilt, unless the vague sense that all is not well. Or the conscience may hitherto have been uneasy, yet no defined sense of guilt be there. Doubtless, Saul of Tarsus quailed before the words, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” The natural conscience of man feels this pricking and goading at times: its zeal and ardor is forced and unreal. There are compunctions in that principle which sits in judgment upon men’s actions (which conscience does), and though it be sought to silence its voice with freshened zeal, it never rests.
Were there no prickings of the natural conscience in Saul of Tarsus, when with upturned face, shining like an angel, the martyr Stephen gazed into the heavens, his body shattered by the stones of the multitude, and commended his spirit to Jesus? Were there none, when those pale faces of some who loved their Lord and Master-to save themselves, and those they loved, from prison and from death —blasphemed His name, compelled to it by this violent man? (Acts 26:1111And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. (Acts 26:11)). Ah, “the way of transgressors is hard,” and it was so with Saul. Yet, while natural conscience takes knowledge of these things., it does not follow that the soul is converted to God. Nay, rather, natural conscience drives a man away from Him. It drove Saul to greater excesses than before. It drove Adam away from God to hide under the trees of the garden; until his conscience felt the power of the word — “Adam, where art thou?” Then it was awakened, and he stood before God a convicted sinner. It drove Saul to seek to hide his real state under the religious zeal which hitherto filled his soul.
But when the voice of Jesus reached him in his mad career, his guilt stood forth in its terrible intensity, as he was brought to bay. And when he was allowed to read his own soul’s guilt in the presence of God, where no excuse could avail, then his conscience was purged and set at rest. But with him at this time, there may have been no question of his nature raised. This is not the question which comes foremost in the history of souls. The efforts to avoid the evil, and perform the good, to be well pleasing to the Lord, which follow true conversion, bring out this in its true and terrible depths. Saul has now to pass through this stage of the soul’s history, for his own deliverance, as a saint; I do not dwell here on the fact of its necessity afterward for helping others — but as a vessel of mercy, which, from such a state, must be set free.
Probably during the three years, in which he “went down into Arabia, and abode at Damascus,” it was, when this took place. On this I do not dogmatize: but it was a needful process, whenever it occurred; and the result of it we find in the experimental learning of his nature, through the bitter anguish and exercises detailed in Romans 7, much of which doubtless he had to learn experimentally for himself, as also the many lessons which he learned for the sake of other souls.
Here I would remark, that the experience of the closing verses of this well-known chapter (Rom. 7:14-26) have a wider and larger significance, than perhaps many may be aware of. It is so framed by the Spirit of God, that no exercised soul, however deep may be its experience, and under whatsoever dealings and dispensations it is found, but may find expression in some way for that which it is passing through. In some cry or other there recorded, it will find what answers to that which it endures; though doubtless its full pressure could not be known until the light of Christianity had shone. I do not enter upon its details. Many have done this: some with lasting profit for many more. But I judge that it reaches far behind the exercises of a soul under the law, as expressed in the “ten words.”
The natural man may have lived — “touching the righteous that is in the law, blameless,” yet with his soul still unawakened. In overt acts its prohibitions had never been broken. But they never touched the tree — the root of “sin” within! There was one of its commands which reached his inmost soul at last: the command which said, “Thou shalt not lust,” and when that commandment came, expressing the holiness of the law, “sin revived, and I died.” “Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of lust, for without law, sin was dead”; it lay dormant; or unprovoked within his soul; until its unholiness was thus revealed.
Human nature fallen, too plainly speaks on every hand, not to have discovered to us the fact, that the moment a prohibition comes home to us — from the earliest childhood to our latest breath — at once is kindled within us the desire for the very thing which it forbade. A thousand instances and examples might be presented to prove this.
But there was “Law” in Paradise — before man fell, and man was a responsible creature before he broke away from God: he was responsible to obey the law-prohibiting his eating the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — before he became a “transgressor.” God had revealed His ways to him, as a Giver, in the largest and widest munificence. Nothing was withheld from man. The ten thousand tributary streams which contributed to his happiness in Eden, spoke of a God who would withhold no good thing. “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat”; proclaimed the freeness and fullness of no niggard Hand. The man was to enjoy it all freely. One small interdict prohibited the eating of the fruit of one tree: a tree which marked a responsibility which, when accepted, would only entail evil: “In the day that thou eatest thereof, dying, thou shalt die.” It was that, in observing which, he expressed that his will was subject to God who had placed him there, and surrounded him with every creature blessing.
This is the principle of law. An interdict will always prove a will in the person addressed, either subject or insubject to another. The smallest interdict is sufficient for this. It is the way to discover whether another is subject to you or not. If insubject, the authority of that other is refused, and as a consequence two wills are opposed, the one to the other: while the man that is tested, owns in conscience, that God has a right to be obeyed.
Now Satan did not begin by calling attention to the blessedness with which the man had been surrounded: nor to the character of God as “giving all things richly to enjoy.” Rather does he seize upon the prohibition calling attention to the interdict alone — “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” whereas, God had said, “Ye shall eat of every tree.” The grand master-stroke of the serpent was, to instill lust into the soul, and distrust of God; to cast a suspicion on the fullness and freeness of His nature to bestow. This was the poison of the serpent, which has permeated humanity ever since that day. It was done before ever there was a sin committed. The devil had stepped in, and sown distrust in man’s heart; creating a suspicion in the soul; and separating man and his Creator by the loss of faith in Him.
This is what men do between each other now-a-days, to reach some end they have in view. I dare say they may not perhaps think so: but the largest portion of the sorrows between men, or even between brethren, are caused by some hint, behind backs; or some whispered story, to which the heart of others is ready to lend an ear; which causes distrust to spring up between souls. Distrust engendered, dislike follows, but more especially in the one who has wronged the other. It is exceedingly hard to trust a heart you have wronged. “A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it”; and “He that repeateth a matter, separateth very friends”; and “He that did his neighbor wrong, thrust him away,” &c. These passages (kindred in their character) are but the workings of this principle of evil. Hence the true saying, “The injured may forget; the injurer, never!”
To restore man to perfect confidence in God: and to meet the outrage on His nature, was the work of Christ at the “end of the world.”
Man, then, was a responsible creature before he fell. Distrust of God and lust were instilled into the soul of the woman. Will was put forth against: God — and in the case of Adam, high-handed will (for “he was not deceived” (1 Tim. 2:1212But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. (1 Timothy 2:12)); and man fell. A breach, as wide as the poles, came in at once between God and man; an abyss, impossible to repair, or to recross. Man became as “one of us,” said the Lord, “to know good and evil” (Gen. 3:2222And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: (Genesis 3:22)). This he never can unlearn. He never returns to innocence again.
What, then, is “to know good and evil”? It is something which is said of Godhead too; “as one of us,” we read “to know good and evil”! It is to sit in judgment, and pass sentence, on good or evil which we find in our own souls. Of David the king, it was said, by the wise woman of Tekoah, “as an angel of God, so is my Lord the king, to discern good and bad” (2 Sam. 14:1717Then thine handmaid said, The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad: therefore the Lord thy God will be with thee. (2 Samuel 14:17)). This in reference to the decisions of judgment. So of Solomon in 1 Kings 3:99Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? (1 Kings 3:9); so of Israel, Deut. 1:3939Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it. (Deuteronomy 1:39); see also Hebrews 5:1414But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14).
This is the work of conscience: to take know-ledge of the evil practiced by a will opposed to God; to sit in judgment upon it, and to condemn: and, alas! to apprehend the good, while opposed to it; to approve of it, without the power to perform. This was fallen man with a conscience. Responsible before he fell; distrusting God; and transgressing in will His command. An ability, even when fallen, to pass sentence upon his own actions, by the knowledge of good and evil: good that he had not the power nor desire to practice, and evil that he was not able to avoid! Then, at last, he is driven out of the presence of God; for he had lost his place on such a ground forever. These three things marked his state. Distrust of God; sin committed in that distrust; and his place irrecoverably lost. These three things are reversed by the gospel. His confidence is restored by faith in Him as a Savior; his sins removed, which had been committed in distrust; and he is brought into a new place in Christ before Him.
The soul when thus awakened, finds these great primal enmities which separated between God and man, wrought upon, in deep and solemn exercises. The sense of responsibility as a sinner who had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, at enmity in his mind by wicked works; the knowledge of good unfulfilled, and of the evil of his nature exposed; powerless, too, for all but evil; the sense, in some measure, differing according to circumstances, of good in God Himself; and a responsibility to set itself, as it supposes, right with Him. These things are forced on the soul in terribly bitter lessons.
Nothing in man’s words can equal those of the soul’s anguish in Romans 7. “I am carnal, sold under sin; for that which I do, I allow not: for that I would, that do I not; but what I hate that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law, that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good which I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do, that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God, after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.” Mark, reader, this struggle between “good “ and “evil,” by a soul under the sense of responsibility, or, “in the flesh.” Yet it is not his guilt which troubles, but his state The deep anguish not only takes in all this, but goes back to the first spring of departure of man from God. All the roots of its being are laid naked, and open, before Him with whom it has to do. How varied are the ways of God to lead the soul into this struggle; that it may learn to struggle no more; that it may learn that every effort, every trial, every struggle, as long as they continue, are only the more distinct proofs that it is not yet arrived at that point where, when ceasing to struggle, it surrenders; and then only finds, that this surrender; is liberty. It is then set free.
I forbear here, to deduce examples of these exercises and their end, as found in the word. Many are to be found there; many, too, may be interpreted every day by scripture, as they are seen in the people of God.
The discovery of an evil nature, by a saint, suggests at once, that it should be subdued. The desires and longings of his renewed soul, when felt by him, suggest at once, that they should be gratified; and that God had implanted it there to that end. The sense, too, of responsibility, that both these suggestions should find their answer somehow, lays the ground of this painful struggle. It is not conflict, properly so called, at all. It is the effort which only ends in defeat, more painful still. It leads into captivity, but does not set free. But when deliverance comes —not victory (victory would be my own meritorious act, deliverance that of Another), it comes as a double deliverance — answering to the “good” which it found itself incapable of producing, and to the evil which it was impossible to avoid. The soul must be able to look up, rejoicing in liberty with God, and it must be able to look down into its own heart, and be able to produce the good which it longed to perform, and have power over the working of a sinful nature, the flesh,” within.
Here it is that we find a defect in our souls. Many have got that liberty which enables them to look up to God: they can say, “All there is well.” But are we all free from the power of the evil within, when we examine our own hearts? Nay; the very joy and thankfulness which the soul experiences in being free in looking up, makes too often careless, alas! about the other. This may be through ignorance; indeed, it may frequently be so. We need to be taught that there is a freedom of the soul, which is filled with the Spirit, in which it may walk each day absolutely apart from all the workings of the flesh, or the desires of the mind: such a liberty, indeed, as if there was no evil to combat there at all-a freedom which brings forth fruit to God.
It is not that there will not be conflict to the end of our pathway here; it is not that “the flesh” will cease to be an occasion of constant watchfulness. Nor is it that “sin in the flesh” can ever cease to exist, while we are here on earth, though “condemned” when Christ died. But let us remember Paul’s path as a saint, a vessel chosen to God; one who walked in such a way (and in this he would join others also), saying, “It is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do according to his good pleasure!” It is no more then, “the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.” Nay, the “willing” and the “doing” are accomplished by souls set free; vessels in whom God can work, and wield according to His good pleasure.
For what, beloved reader, is a vessel? Suppose you placed one on the table at your side, have you not two thoughts in your mind as to its use? You place it there to hold what you put in it; this is one thought. Then the other is, that it may be held by the hand of another. Had it a will or a motion, these uses would be hindered.
And so with God’s vessels of mercy; they must be will-less, and motionless too; they are to be filled with that which He puts in them, and to be held and used by His hand. It is only in the measure that our wills, our motions, our thoughts, are set aside, that we are really vessels; and, as such, fitted and meet for the Master’s use.
But this is not our present subject. Here we are discussing the deliverance of the vessel, so that it may be free in soul with God, and free, too, from the workings of the will of the flesh, and have power to bring forth fruit to God; that on the one hand it may realize its place “in Christ,” and on the other, that “Christ liveth in me.”
I remember, years since, visiting at the bedside of an aged saint. We spoke for some time on general things as Christians. I asked her if she had ever thought of Christ who was in glory, ‘living’ in her weak body, on its bed of suffering? I have not forgotten the strange look she gave, as the thought flashed upon her mind, for the first time, as it appeared to me. “Ah,” she said, “Christ living in me!” It seemed a wonderful revelation to her soul: the body, as the vessel — so much in the power of this, that Christ, not self, lived. “Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Is not this even a greater thought, though the converse of that word of Paul, “To me to live is Christ”? The latter was the motive of his life-the spring in his soul; the former, the result of this, “ Christ liveth in me.”
This is freedom indeed. “The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free.” We speak of the law of gravitation, the law of nature. We mean the natural tendency of each which governs its actions; as the apple falls to the ground: it does not rise when disengaged from the tree. This thought in its own character, is here. That “law,” — the tendency in which it must move — “of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath made me free.” It lifts the soul out of that other law of sin, that which governs the nature of the flesh; and also, that law of death. It has become the law — the natural issue, of life, which He breathed on His own when He arose — a quickening Spirit — the second Man — the risen Lord.
Thus, may we not say, the soul finding its responsibility — “under law,” as having eaten of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” — passes through these deep lessons, that it may discover experimentally, the depths of a ruined nature — “the flesh” — which sprang up in man’s heart when he broke away from God. But now set free, it finds too, that it has reached in Christ, the “Tree of life”: the “law of the spirit of life” in Him, setting it wholly “free from the law of sin and death.” Free, too, in that two-fold way which we have in measure discussed. Namely, free in soul in looking upward at God; free to enjoy in the present, and in hope, all that He is. And free from the workings of “the flesh” within. Self is ignored, and the life lived in the flesh is lived by the faith of the Son of God: that is, faith in Him as object, and power, and all. The springs and motives of such a life do not spring from self, but from “Christ”; and thus only bring forth fruit to God: being filled with the fruit of righteousness, which is by Jesus Christ, to His praise and glory.