The Nature of the Christian Life # 4

A Talk to Young Christians on the Nature of the Christian Life


A Different Constitution


Now we come to another thing in this chapter. As you look at it, you will find that this means that we are constituted in an altogether different way from all other people. The Holy Spirit, coming inside, has created and constituted a new kind of human being, a different kind of humanity from all the rest of humanity. That is saying a tremendous thing; and yet it is not something advanced in the Christian life - this is something fundamental to it, belonging to the very beginning. We use the word "species": well, the Holy Spirit has created and constituted a new and different species of humanity. The fundamental reality about a true child of God is that he is different from all other people who are not children of God. The difference is not that they have decided to be religious, and to go to meetings, and company with Christian people; do this thing and that thing, and give up a  lot of other things - that is not it at all. Their very being, their very constitution, has been changed; they are different people. It is an inner "difference"; something known by us; something we sense on the inside; something that seems to bring a newness of "life" within us.


You know how true this is. When you have really become the Lord's, and this great change has taken place, this "something" has happened inside, and you go back into the world, you know that there are two kinds of humanity in your office, i your workshop, in your factory, in your school, or wherever you are. You are one, and the others are another! Although, on the outside, in outward appearance and so on, there may be no visible difference, yet thee is just the same difference as there was between the Lord Jesus, when He was here on this earth, and the other people in the world. While He could understand them, they could never understand Him. It was just as though they were living in two different worlds. As He said: "You are from beneath; I am from above" (John 8:23). And that is exactly true of every child of God. We too can say: I am from above; this is no longer my place; this is no longer my home; I am no longer at rest here in this world. I have got a new nativity; I have got a new location; I have got a new country, a new land; here in this world I'm just an alien.


That becomes a very real thing to the child of God. Never try to violate it - never try to be at home in this world. If you do, you will be doing damage to your new constitution - because it is that, you see, that is your testimony. It is not that you try to be different at all. Never try to be different; never put it on! Never try to create the impression that you are different. The difference is there, right enough! If you want any proof of that, you will find that, from the moment of your new birth, the devil knows you! You are a human just like Christ when He was here.


As far as this world was concerned, and those who were under the enemy's control, Jesus could never do anything right: everything He said - that which in anybody else would have been accounted good - was wrong; everything that He did well, they found fault with it. I was reading about this only today; it is an amazing thing. As He was going about the country, up and down the length and breadth of that country, doing good, casting out demons, healing those who are sick - leaving behind Him a veritable trail of folk made whole and delivered, set free, blessed with a new life and a new outlook - here come along those other people: "By the prince of the demons he casts out demons!" They put it all down to the devil - He could not do right! And the devil knows the children of God as he knew the Son of God. And, somehow or other, a lot of things come to us which would never come to us if we were not children of God. It is for that simple reason - that we are different, and we are known.


And it is sensed: sometimes it is almost uncanny how men of this world sense it. They are not able to explain it; they are not able to say why they take these attitudes toward us; they just cannot tell us. In fact, if you ask, "Why do you look at me like that? Why do you feel like that about me?", they say, "Well, I don't know why, but somehow or other ... somehow or other ...!" You see, that is jut it; they can't explain it, they don't understand it at all. But there it is: a fundamental difference of constitution. 


The Holy Spirit coming in makes us different, and it is just that difference that is the basis of everything for the future. Never try to modify or reduce that difference. But, at the same time, never make it artificial: never make people think you are a "goody-goody", that you are "putting it on" and trying to be different - none of that. You are different, right enough; you won't have to "put on" anything if you live in the Spirit. We are constituted differently, and we must understand that that is a fact. That is really what it means to be "born of the Spirit".


~T. Austin-Sparks~


(continued with # 5 - "Led By The Spirit")