Walking in the Spirit

“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Gal. 531253)

WHAT Is IT To LIVE IN THE SPIRIT?
1.

i is to be born of the Spirit. It is to have received a new spiritual life from above. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’” (John 3:6.) ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5.) “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17.) We may have the brightest intellectual life, the most unblemished moral character, and the most amiable qualities of disposition, and yet without the new life of the Holy Spirit in our heart, we can no more enter heaven than the lovely canary that sings in our window can become a member of our family, or the gentle lamb that our children play with can sit down at our table, and share our domestic fellowship and enjoyment. They belong to a different world, and nothing but a new nature and human heart could bring them into fellowship with our human life. The most exalted intellect, and the most attractive, natural disposition, reach no higher than the earthly. The Kingdom of Heaven consists of the family of God, those who have risen to an entirely different sphere, having received a nature as much above the intellectual and the moral as God! (1 John 3: 1.)

A modern writer has finely wrought out this wonderful thought of the difference between the various orders of life, even in the natural world. The little tuft of moss that grows upon the granite rock can look down from immeasurable heights upon the mass of stone on which it rests and say, “I am transcendently above you, for I have life, vegetable life, and you are an inorganic mass!”’ And yet, as we ascend one step, the smallest insect that crawls upon the majectic palm tree can look down upon the most beautiful production of the vegetable world and say, “I am transcendently above you, for I have animal life, and you have not even the consciousness of your own loveliness, or of the little creature that feeds upon your blossom!’’ Still higher we ascend, until we reach the world of mind; and the youngest child of the most illiterate peasant can say to the mightiest creations of the animal world, to the majestic lion, king of the forest; the soaring eagle of the skies; the many-tinted bird of paradise, or the noble steed that bears his master, like the whirlwind, over the desert, “I am your lord, for I possess intellectual life, and you have neither soul nor reason, and must perish with your expiring breath, and become like the clods beneath your feet, but I shall live forever.”

But there is still another step beyond all this. There is a spiritual world which is as much higher than the intellectual as that is above the physical; and the humblest and most uncultured Christian, who has just learned to pray, and say, “Our Father which art in heaven” (Mat. 6:9) from the depths of a regenerate heart, is as much above the loftiest genius of the world of mind as he is above the material creation at his feet.

This is the meaning of Christianity; it is the breath of a new nature; it is the translation of the soul into a higher universe and a loftier scale of being, even introducing it into the family of God Himself and making it partaker of the divine nature. This is indeed a stupendous mystery, and a bestowment whose glory may well fill our hearts with everlasting wonder, as we cry with the adoring Apostle, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!” (1 John 3: 1.)

Not by adoption merely are we thus admitted to the Father’s house, but by actual birth; from the very bosom of the Holy Ghost, as from a heavenly mother, has our new spirit been born; just as literally as Jesus Christ Himself was born of the eternal Spirit in the bosom of Mary. So it might be said of every newborn soul: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1: 35.) Beloved, do we thus live in the Spirit? This is everlasting life.

2. To live in the Spirit is also to be baptized of the Holy Ghost, and have the Spirit as a divine person living in us. There is something higher than the new birth, namely, the entering in of the Comforter, in His personal fullness and glory, to dwell in the consecrated heart and abide there forever. Jesus was born of the Spirit in Bethlehem, but He was baptized of the Spirit thirty years Jater on the banks of the Jordan; and this made all the difference which we trace between His quiet years at Nazareth and His public ministry in Galilee and Judea.

From that time there were two persons united in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. The Holy Ghost, as a divine person, was united with the person of Jesus Christ, and was the source of His power and the inspiration of His teaching; and He constantly represented Himself as speaking the words and doing the works which the Spirit in Him prompted.

And so there is in the believer’s life a similar experience, when the soul truly converted to God yields itself wholly to His control and becomes the living temple of the, Almighty Spirit, who henceforth dwells in it, and walks in it, giving it, not only a new nature, which it received in regeneration, but Himself, a Divine Guest, a Presence, to dwell in that new nature as its controlling guide and almighty strength.

Then is fulfilled the double promise of Ezekiel: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you,”... “and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” (Ezek. 36: 26-27.) Henceforth, we live in the Spirit in a higher sense than even after our conversion. Our life is not only spiritual but divine. Henceforth, it is not we who live, but Christ who liveth in us, and we draw from Him, through the Holy Ghost, every moment, life, and health, and joy, and peace. It is not living through the Spirit, but living in the Spirit. He is the very element of our new existence: before us, behind us, above us, beneath us, within us, beyond us; we are buried in Him, lost in Him, encompassed by Him as by the air we breathe. This is the yet higher mystery of the new life, greater than the new birth. This is the secret which Paul declares was hid for ages and generations, but is now made manifest to His saints — ‘‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col. 1:27.)

Keep reading