The Nature of Eternal Life (continued)
The effect of receiving eternal life within us is to bring instantly a sense of having reached an end. I know it opens up new possibilities, new ranges, but you know you have got the essence of satisfaction. You may yet have much to learn, you may have a long way to go, there may be new worlds to be explored and conquered, but you have got the secret of the end of all in possessing this life.
What is the first thing that one really born from above is conscious of? When you really do pass from death into life, and are born from above, what is the first uninterpreted, undefined, but very real thing in your consciousness? Well, you have found what you have been longing for! You have reached an end of that long history of dissatisfaction; moreover, you have discovered the secret of your very being, why you are here in his world; you have a sense of being here for something now. The spontaneous issue of that life in the New Testament was that the people immediately wet out and talked to others. It created a purpose and an object in life. Their whole bearing and conduct said: We have found the explanation of our being in the world. You never will find that, until you find eternal life. It brings that as its essence. Why are we here? You have the answer to that question when you have the Lord! You may not be able to define it, but you know by an inner strong sense that you are here with a purpose, and that purpose is not something of time, it is eternal. It links you with eternity. It is the essence of eternal life which brings satisfaction and, therefore, the sense of permanence. Its nature is the permanence of the universe, because it is God. Receive that, and you know the deeper meaning of the poor English word "eternal." That is why John has so little to do with time and geography; he is out in that which is eternal.
The Law of Eternal Life
Now I close with just one word about the law of eternal life. What is the law of eternal life? The indwelling of the Holy Spirit! The Lord's words in this chapter about the spring of water within undoubtedly relate to the Holy Spirit, and we must not divide between Divine life and the Holy Spirit. We have to come to see that it is not an "it"; it is He; it is the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of life. Insofar as it is an "it" it is only an expression of Him. We speak of the effect of a person's presence. You come into this room; you are a person, but from you there may come an influence: that influence may be of life, or it may be of death; it may be of joy, or it may be of depression; it may be of good fellowship, or it may be of suspicion. The Holy Spirit with His presence emanates that which is eternal life; the life is that which comes with Him, from Him, is always a part of Him. It is something in itself, but it is something related to Someone, and you cannot have life as an indwelling reality, as a thing apart from the Person.
We cannot stay to enlarge greatly upon the law of the indwelling Holy Spirit. When speaking of Nicodemus we said that the new birth from above is an advent, not a revival; it is the definite taking up of residence within, in an act, by the Lord. Well, this is only the same truth. On the positive side the Holy Spirit must, in a definiteness of faith appropriation, be received. Do you notice how, later, with the Acts and onward, that is stressed? The Word is repeated again and again: "And that thou mightest receive the Holy Spirit." It was said to Paul at His conversion, and it was said at Pentecost. "Repent and be baptized ... and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." To the Ephesian disciples who had not been instructed, and whose relationship to the Lord was, therefore, very imperfect, the Apostle said: "Have ye received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?" There must be the recognition of the fact that our life as children of God is based upon our receiving the Holy Spirit. "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." So that the life of the child of God is not just some kind of becoming interested in Christianity and religious things; and taking up religious work, and entering into a religious realm outside of which we lived before, and in which we then had no interest. It is something far more radical than that. It is the Spirit of the living God, in an act, coming to take up His residence in one who has come to the place where they recognized that they were dead, and there were no possibilities whatever in the realm of God for them except on the basis of being born from above. And the coming to dwell of the Holy Spirit begins everything, and on that basis everyone goes on. We said that the doctrine of eternal life means the putting within of that upon which every Divine activity takes place, but that is the Holy Spirit in us working in harmony with God in heaven; and God in heaven working in us by His Holy Spirit. That is the larger way of putting the same truth. We must not think of this as abstract. It is personal. This life is not merely an essence, a vapor, an abstraction; it is an intelligent thing. You cannot take life as you may take the ether and think of it as having personal intelligence. This life is a life which has the intelligence of God. Eternal intelligence because it is the Holy Spirit. When you think that having the Holy Spirit resident within means that there within us is all the knowledge that God possesses, what tremendous possibilities there are of usefulness! Our business throughout the spiritual life is to learn how to live in the Spirit. Yes, we have in the Holy Spirit all that God has to give us. Now we have to learn how to appropriate what we have, how to ENJOY what we have.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 20 - "All Related to Christ Personally")
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