Growth

‘THE first great truth the Scripture reveals as an essential condition of fellowship with God is the impartation to the soul of the principle of spiritual life. “Ye must be born again.” No amount of moral culture or religious training can raise the “natural man “into the sphere of a spiritual existence. It is only by the communication of a Divine principle — a vital energy from God Himself, that we can pass from death unto life. The Apostle Paul recognises that fact in such words as these,” And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and

Eph. ii I.

It is also the testimony of Scripture
John i
13-
II. 12.

that this principle of Divine Ufe comes with a reception of God’s unspeakable gift. “As many as received Him, to them gave He power (right) to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” To receive the Christ is to be born of God. “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life.”

But the question with the believer is, not — How shall I obtain life? but. How shall I, who have been born from above, quickened into a new existence — how shall I grow and advance so as to abound in spiritual vigour and show forth the praises of Him who hath called me out of darkness into His marvellous light?

This brings us to another great truth revealed to us in the Scripture. And that is, in order to a walk of fellowship with God, next in importance to the communication of life is the maintenance of those conditions which are essential for its development and growth.

What is the essential condition oiliving? We must recognise the distinction between mere spiritual existence and living. The scientific definition of living, in the sphere of the natural world, is this — that the life must be in perfect correspondence with its environment. There is the life within, and there is its environment. All that the life needs for its sustenance, development, and transformation, is found, not in itself, but in its surroundings. That which is essential, therefore, in order that there may be growth, is that the channel between the two should be open, so that the stream of supply should flow uninterruptedly.

This is precisely what the Scripture reveals as essential in order to spiritual growth. Salvation consists not merely in! the quickening of the soul, but in its; introduction into a Divine environment.

All that the regenerate soul needs for progress, holiness and fruitfulness, is found in that Divine surrounding. He is not only quickened, he has by faith passed into a new sphere of existence — he has “believed into Christ.” Whatever may be his spiritual necessities, they are all to be met by that fulness which dwells in Him. But one thing is essential, and that is that the channel of communication should be free. There must be “correspondence” between the need that belongs to the life within, and the provision that exists in the environment. The stream of supply from one to the other must flow without interruption. As in natural life health consists not in the cessation of hunger, by once for all satisfying the craving for food, but by the continual supply of that which meets the ever-recurring appetite; so in the spiritual life, soul-health does not consist in the removal of our need once for all, but in the continual meeting of that need. The fulness stored up in Christ,

H5

in whom we live and move and have our being, is the complement of what we lack in ourselves. But the two should be constantly meeting each other.

In this consists the “fulness of blessmg.

My need and Thy great fulness meet, And I have all in Thee.”

Increase of spiritual vitality will be the effect of a more perfect “correspondence” with our Divine surrounding. This correspondence is effected by faith. We are “filled” “in believing.” Faith is the channel of communication between the need in ourselves and the fulness in Christ. The greater the faith, or the greater the receptivity, the larger the channel and the larger the measure of supply. “According to your faith be it unto you.”

Declension in spiritual life and weakness in action are the result of feebleness of faith. The correspondence becomes at once impaired, and the stream of supply

Rom.

Afatt. ix. 29.
is hindered.

surrounding,

To correspond with one’s does not mean that there must be an identity of nature between the inner being and its environment. On the contrary, as we have said, the one is the complement of the other. What the Col. ii. 10. one lacks the other supplies. “Ye are in Him being filled full.”

In the spiritual, no less than in the natural world, there is no such thing as stagnation without corruption, decay, and death. If the need ceases to exist, the supply will cease to flow, and stagnation at once begins. Ceaseless activity is the characteristic of the healthy, vigorous life. Our emptiness is ever being met by His Fulness. Our weakness by His Strength. Our defilement by His Cleansing. Our tendency to sin by His Purity, and His Power to keep us from falling.

It is not that Christ by one act, once for all, meets the need and absolutely removes it. But by the law of couniei — , action and supply He is ever meeting the ’47

need. To suppose that the first of these is the case, is sooner or later to fall into the delusion that we are kept by Christ in a state of self-sufficiency.

“I need Thee every hour” is a true experience, and one that is perfectly compatible with the utterance, “I have Thee every hour.”

The notion above referred to, pressed to its logical issue, must result in the rejection of the truth that we are here in this life only in process of being “changed into the same image.”

If we do not continue to the ltxy last hour of our earthly existence to need the cleansing or purifying efficacy of the blood of Jesus Christ, progressive purity can have no place in our doctrine of sanctification. We shall fall into the delusion that Christ has made us already, not judicially merely, but in ourselves, as pure as we ever shall be! This is simply to glory in our own fulness, rather than in Christ.

He who is the very home of our renewed r Cor. i. 9.

being is the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person. We are being changed into the same image.

“In Him is no sin.” We are being cleansed from every sin. In Him all fulness dwells. We are receiving of that fulness and grace for grace.

He is the power of God. We are beiig strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. And so on with all our other needs, there must be a continuous participation of Christ if we are to grow up into Him in all things.

It is only as we are thus kept down low, with an ever-deepening sense of our need of Him, and in full and close communion with Him, that we shall know what “living” really means.

Let us recognise clearly that the source of supply is not in ourselves. God has “called us into participation of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” And to kindle our faith, so that we may be brought into living commLinion with Him, He lias givei. us “exceeding great and precious promises;” that by these “we might become” partakers of the Divine Nature

2 Pet. i.<