The New Life

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,” Phil. iv. 13.

THE Christian position in grace, “accepted in the beloved,” demands a corresponding experience. The law demanded a righteous life, grace demands spiritual life.

Salvation has its source in the heart of God, and reaches us on the principle of grace, or unmerited favor, through faith alone, without works.

Indeed when one thinks of the depth from which the sinner is taken, and of the height to which the saint is raised, one wonders that any sane being could ever have supposed that works could have any place in such a salvation. One says with Zophar, ‘* It is high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? ‘’

The new
ethic,
Eph. i. 6.
Matt. V.
3-II.
GaL V.
22-23.
Eph. iv.
30-32.
Phil. iv.
4-9.

John iii.
16.

Eph. ii.
4-9.

Eph.
1-3.

Eph. i.
3-13.

Job xi. 8.

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Eph. ii. 4.

The ethic

superhuman.

Col. iii. 1-4.

Eph. iv.
I, 2,

Eph. vi. 12.

Gal. V. 16,
17.

Man Is helpless and hopeless in death and sin. Man cannot lift himself out of death into fellowship and oneness with Christ in the heavenlies, ‘* but God who is rich in mercy” can.

It has been objected to Christianity that it requires of the believer a superhuman type of living. The objection is well taken — it does. No mere morality, however high, no most scrupulous observance of the outward things of the religious life, as Bible reading, prayer, church-going, almsgiving, will fill out the demand of the Christian ethic. It is a heavenly standard for earthly living. The whole environment is hostile to that standard; Satan and his hosts are determined the believer shall not realize it in his own experience; nay, the believer’s own flesh rebels against it

Here comes the peril: The beanti dtijer interpretations Hever will be tempted to say, ‘’ This is an ideal merely. It is not seriously meant to be fully realized. It helps just as the moon helps if I make it my target, for while I shall not strike the moon, I shall shoot higher than I should if I made the barn roof my target.”

But the type of Christian experience which we have in the Epistles is not set forth as an unattainable ideal. It is indeed above man’s natural capacity, but with the superhuman demand is given a superhuman enablement, and millions of God’s dear children, from Paul down to this day, have lived in ‘’ steadfastness,” ‘’ unity,” ‘* helpfulness,” constant unbroken joy in the Lord, “moderation,” utter deliverance from care, with mind and heart garrisoned in the peace of God. Millions have lived in the things that are “true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report,” and so have known the constant

I Cor. XV.

Eph. iv. 3.
Phil. iv. 5.

Phil. iv. 6,
Phil. iv. 8.

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Phil. iv. 9.

Phil. iv. 1 1.

Phil. iv. 13.

Gal. V. 16,
17.

The believer supernatural,

John iii.
16.

John X. 28.

Rom. viii.
2.

presence of the God of peace. They, like Paul, have learned in whatsoever state they are, therein to be content.

And they have lived this type of life because they have learned the secret, and that secret is, I can do all things through Christ my strength. Along with the supernatural and humanly unattainable standard of Christian living goes, under grace, a supernatural and altogether adequate enablement.

The Christian is more than a forgiven sinner with a high ideal. He has received the new birth, and so been made a partaker of the Divine nature; Jesus Christ, the Lord of Life, has imparted to him His own life, and has sent, to indwell this child of God, His own Divine Spirit.

Nay, more. At the right hand of the Father, exalted to be a High Priest, is the believer’s risen Lord, antr 0tf)tx Snterpretationsi Who, ever liveth to make intercession “for him. Gifted with all authority in heaven and in earth, He watches over and commands the providences of the believers life. Having Himself suffered, being tempted, He is able also to succor them that are tempted. Tenderly regardful of human weakness, He is “touched,” not angered, with the feeling of our infirmities. Nothing necessary to the Christian’s victory, power and peace has been forgotten.

And the one broad distinction between Christian and Christian is that some are seeking by self-effort to attain to the standard of right Christian living, while others, in utter self-distrust, are yielding themselves to the great supernatural enablements, which are the birthright of every believer. Some are “going about to establish their own righteousness,” others are” submitting themselves unto the

Heb. vii.
25.

Matt,
xxviii. 18.

Heb. iv. 15.

Rom. X. 3.
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Rom. viii.

Th mystery of suffering.

Job xlii. 3.

righteousness of God.” The first are ever hoping to fulfil the righteousness of the law, and ever failing; the second, walking in the Spirit, have the blessed experience of the righteousness of the law fulfilled “in ‘’ (not’* by”) them.