Life On The Highest Plane
Carnal or Spiritual
A spiritual Christian has a life of abiding peace.
John 14:27, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
John 16:33, "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall gave tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
The peace of the spiritual Christian is that of Christ's presence. "My peace I give unto you." It does not mean that there is no conflict in the life of the spiritual Christian for it is through conquest in conflict that he grows, but it does mean the peace of conscious victory in Christ. The spiritual Christian does not continue in the practice of known, willful sin so he lives in the unclouded sunshine of the Father's presence and in the unshadowed light of the Father's countenance. His communion with the Father is unmarred by the gnawing consciousness of soiled hands, by the pricking of a wounded conscience, or by the condemnation of an accusing heart. There is abiding peace, deepening joy and satisfying rest. It is a life of habitual victory.
1 Corinthians 15:57, "But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Romans 8:37, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us."
2 Corinthians 2:14, "Now thanks be unto God which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place."
The believer has changed masters and has entered into a new servitude which is perfect freedom. God tells him he has been made "free from sin"; that he is "more than conqueror" through Christ; that "the victory" of the Cross was all inclusive; and that "in Christ" he may walk through life's battlefield "in triumph." The spiritual Christian takes God's word at face value, he dares to believe it and to act accordingly.
The believer's identification with Christ did not secure for him "victories" only but "victory." His victory over sin is all inclusive, the greater has wrapped within it the lesser. He who has given victory over one sin can give victory over all sin; He who has kept from sin for a moment, can with equal ease keep for an hour or a day. Victory over sin is a gift through Christ.
Victory need not be intermittent but may be habitual. God can cause us always in all places, under all circumstances, at all times, in all things, "to triumph in Christ" for "He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them"
Perhaps some reader will say, "I have experienced occasionally this glorious freedom from some besetting sin but it has been only a transient liberty. Is there really such a thing here on earth as habitual victory over all known sin?"
Let us think of the difference between such a transient liberty and a permanent freedom. It was made very clear to me once through an experience in speaking on two Sundays to the women in Cook County jail in Chicago. At the first meeting one hard-faced, rough-looking woman made considerable trouble, nearly breaking up the meeting. She came at the close imploring me to secure her release from jail, making all sorts of lavish promises of good behavior, even to becoming a Christian if I would do her this favor. Twenty-six times she had been behind those bars for the same offense, she said. This confession told me why she was in jail. Liberty she had had twenty-five times: freedom she had never known. She had no desire to break with sin but only to break from jail.
The following Lord's Day I spoke on the difference between liberty and freedom. Knowing that the woman's attention must be held for the sake of others as well as for herself I had taken some thread and scissors to illustrate the message. During the talk I asked her for the loan of her fingers. I wound the thread lightly around them and then asked her to free herself. With her strong, brawny hands it was an easy matter just to loosen the thread and she did it quickly. Then I wound it around again and again some fifty times until her fingers were truly "bondservants" to that thread, praying that God would drive home the truth of her terrible bondage to sin. All the time her face grew longer and more perplexed. Finally I stopped and asked her again to loosen her fingers and free herself. With real seriousness she looked into my face and said bluntly, "You know I can't!" I said, "Yes, I know you can't and are you not glad that I have brought these scissors along which can cut this thread and set your fingers free?" Then I told her of the Saviour who came from Heaven to die on Calvary's Cross that through the outpouring of His precious blood she might be cut loose from sin and set free forever and ever. "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36).
To make that perfect victory permanent He has sent the Holy Spirit to indwell and control. The carnal man is under the power of the law of sin. It operates in his life bringing him much of the time under its dominion. But there is another and a higher law at work in the believer and as he yields himself to its mighty power the spiritual man is delivered from the law of sin and death. Herein lies his habitual victory over all know sin.
Romans 8:2, "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
It is a life of constant growth into Christ-likeness.
2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit."
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 5)
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