“R.P.” —What is the difference between the bitter experience of Rom. 7:14-24; and the conflict of flesh and the Spirit as in Gal, v.7? How am I to know in which state I am in? Do not both come to the same wretched experience in the end, if in the conflict the flesh gets the upper hand?
A.—First; there is no proper Christian conflict in scripture but that of Eph. 6:12.; this is fighting God’s battles against Satan’s power. Rom. 7 is not conflict but experience; not the experience of a person at the time of his feeling what its bitterness, but that of a delivered man, who narrates he felt when learning his powerlessness against the sinful nature he had discovered, and the sad evil of the flesh in which dwelt no good thing. As a man who had floundered in a morass, and found every plunge putting him deeper, drops his hands and cries out for a deliverer, who comes and pulls him out and sets him free. The delivered one turns round to thank his deliverer and tell him, now peace, he felt when there. He had too much to think of when there, now he relates it on solid ground. So it is experience before deliverance, told by a delivered man. Gal. 5 states the fact of the two antagonistic principles—flesh and Spirit—in their contrariety one to the other. Not necessarily conflict. Because walking in the Spirit we are above the influences of flesh, and do not fulfill its lusts.
In Rom, 7 the soul looks back to the struggle before deliverance. In Gal. 5 it is the two principles which remain in the delivered man.
When you are referring your acceptance with God to your own state in anywise, you are still under law. By which I mean your responsibility as a child of Adam; not necessarily the law of Sinai: and your experience is then that of Rom. 7 You have not yet bowed to the injunction, “Reckon yourself dead;” and you are consequently not free from the power of the evil nature which harasses you. You reply, how can I reckon myself dead, when I feel I am alive? I reply, you never will “feel” yourself dead! but you must “reckon” it so, and accept God’s word as more true than your experience and thoughts. Then you will be able to say, “Yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me.”
Souls go through this painful process (Rom. 7) in order to discover the hopeless evil of the flesh. “That in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good, thing.” It is bitter to discover right desires and strivings after God and good, and after all to be led captive to an evil “I,” so that you hate what you do, and the evil nature is your master, and you do what you hate. These experiences do not set you free, but bring you to the discovery of how evil the flesh is, and that even the possession of a new nature gives you no power! Then you are forced to say, “Who will deliver?” “Who,” brings in another, and your eye is turned off yourself to. Him and you are free! In Christ, God has condemned sin in the flesh when He was a sacrifice for it. (Rom. 8:3.)
The “flesh” in the delivered one is unchanged; be learns growingly the total depravity of his nature. But there is a new “I;” Christ is his life, and the Spirit of God dwells in his body; and there is power in Christ to subdue the evil, by engaging his heart with Christ. The very evil he finds in himself becomes an occasion of communion with Him who has borne its judgment, that He may be delivered from its workings. He does not seek to subdue it himself—that were to labor into sorrow and failure, and recognize himself again. He keeps His eye on Christ, and lives by another, and the evil which would spring up if his eye were averted is subdued, and the power of Christ rests upon his weakness and he can glory in it because of the power of Christ. He never receives intrinsic strength, that would be to take away the joy of living by Christ, and thus an unbroken engagement is needed for victory, and the subjugation of sell He walks in the Spirit and does not fulfill the lusts of the flesh,
“A. L. O. C.” What is the difference between Matt. 16:19; and 18:81? Does the first refer to salvation in connection with the bringing in of the members to be added to the Church; and the second to the discipline of the Assembly? Or, do they both refer anticipatively to discipline?
A.—The first refers to the administration committed personally to Peter, with reference to the “Kingdom of the heavens.” The second to disciples— “Two or three” gathered together in Christ’s name, and connected with the “Assembly;” and valid at any time for two or three thus gathered.
In both cases it is “whatsoever”—thus not referring solely to persons; though slightly differing in form of expression.
To Peter was given—and to him alone of the Twelve—the administration of the kingdom of the heavens, brought in in its “mysteries” (Acts 13.), and commencing at the ascension of the Lord. This power he used, as the first great division of Acts testifies (chs. 1-12). He directed the choice of Matthias, Acts 1; he opened the door to the Jews, Acts 2, he bound Ananias’ and Sapphira’s sin on them, Acts 5; was chief in directing the choice of deacons, Acts 6; discerned Simon the sorcerer’s state; and with John communicated the Holy Ghost, in Acts 8, He opened the door to the Gentiles, Acts 10; he was one of the chiefest speakers in the conference about the law, in Acts 15, &c. Whatsoever he did under heaven’s authority, heaven ratified. Though Peter did not do all heaven did, for all that! This authority and commission was given to none of the apostles but him, and it ended there. This administration was continued to none.
The passage in Matt. 18:18 is authority to the “assembly,” and applicable to any “assembly” which scripture authorizes, though consisting of only two or three. It is continued to such. There is no individual authority in it at all. For making requests, and acting under heaven’s authority, the Lord was in the midst, and gave validity to what they did; though, like Peter, heaven might do, and did, a great deal more than the assembly.
It is of much importance to distinguish between the “Kingdom of the heavens,” of which the “keys” were committed to Peter; and the “Church” which Christ builds. It has been remarked that “men do not build with keys,” and the Church is built.