Great Truths and Their Laws
John 3:1-9
In resuming our meditation in this gospel, the matter which comes immediately before us for our consideration is GREAT TRUTHS AND THEIR LAWS.
Every Divine Truth Is Governed by a Law
It is very important that we should always bear in mind that every Divine truth has its related laws, and is entered into only by way of obedience to those laws. I would have you pause, and give due consideration to the tremendous importance of that fact.
Three Things About These Laws
1. God Maintains Them
There are three things to be said as parts of that general statement. The first is that God maintains those laws, and He Himself sees that they are implicit in every movement into new truth; although they may not be always understood at the time. In other words, we never do enter livingly into any truth, except by the way of the laws which govern that truth, or are basic to that truth. God sees to that. The experiences through which we pass on our way into any truth are God's ways of establishing His laws relative to that truth. We do not always understand what God is doing, or why He is so leading us or handling us, but He is dealing with us, not only to bring us into the truth, but to bring us into the truth according to the laws which govern that truth. We do not always understand those laws when they are being made effective, but God never sets them aside, overlooks them, or allows us to come livingly into the truth apart from them.
2. The Peril of Truth Being Taken Up Without Its Laws
Secondly, the truth taken up without the law operating (a thing quite possible), leads to an unbalanced state, a false position, and the truth operates against the people concerned rather than for them. The issue will be either a breaking of those concerned unto a reconciling adjustment and agreement with the truth spiritually, or else they will abandon the truth. (I want to make sure that you are grasping what I am saying, so please allow me to repeat.) What I have been saying is this in other words. It is possible to take up truth, but not in correspondence with the Divine laws which govern that truth, and apprehending, or taking up, or holding the truth out of correspondence with its essential laws would put us in a false position. We have climbed up some other way, we have not come in by the door. We think we are in, because we have got the truth, but our being in is on an entirely false basis. We have not got the truth by the door, which is the life; we have got the truth along some other line, by some other way, and without the life. We are in a false position. We have got truth without life; we are, therefore, unbalanced: the truth, therefore, will work to our undoing. We shall not find it supporting us but rather breaking us down, and the issue will be one of two things, either by our being broken down we shall be adjusted to the truth, by reason of coming into that truth, or we shall abandon it as a thing which for us does not work. We shall give it up, declaring that it does not "hold water."
3. Understanding May Come After Experience
The third thing. A true and pure experience of the truth may be had without a full understanding of its laws at the time; that is, because of the purity of spirit and honesty of heart. There are many who are living in the enjoyment of truth which they do not understand; living in the experience of truth which they could never define. The laws governing their enjoyment and their experience could never, by them, be set forth, and yet they are enjoying a true and pure experience of the truth. But the Lord does not leave it there, and His will is to bring all into an intelligent understanding of the truth. There is something added by understanding, something added to the enjoyment, appreciation and power in the individual concerned; and something added to the Lord in the way of having a more useful instrument for the purpose of the truth. On the one side it is a great day when we have our experience explained for us, and we are able to say: I have enjoyed that, but I have never understood it, but now I see the meaning of that. There has been something added. And to the Lord it is also a great day to have His children not only enjoying an experience, but in possession of the understanding which makes it possible for them to minister in an intelligent way. In the New Testament, doctrine mainly followed history, a history produced by certain truths. Certain truths were proclaimed; those truths were apprehended, accepted by faith, and history commenced. If you like to change the word "history" into "experience" you may, but experience is a personal word, and history a more general word. I am thinking in the realm of the Book of the Acts; the movements, developments, goings and stayings. The whole history was the result of certain facts apprehended by faith. A history was occasioned by those truths. But the history was not the end; later the doctrine came to explain the history. Acts comes before the Epistles. The Epistles were written to explain experience, history. What is the meaning of this, of that, and, that? The answer is given in the doctrine.
~T. Austin-Sparks
(continued with # 10)
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