OUR author opened this chapter saying:
“The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit … he shall teach you all things … He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you” (John 14:26; 16:14, ASV).
“The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit.” The Lord Jesus chose the perfect designation in introducing the Holy Spirit as our Comforter.
HE goes on to remind us of the “lifelong process” of spiritual grow unto Christ – whose image we are being conformed [to] by the Eternal Spirit. Now he shows us what the process looks like as we deal with the biggest enemy of all, self – that is so easily ensnared by the world’s allures and the accusing adversary.
WELL, with that short introduction, let us get right to our reading for today, Spirit-applied Reckoning, Part 2
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2; Prov. 21:30
********
Chapter 43 — Spirit-applied Reckoning – Part 2
Although Peter, James, and John were given the glorious privilege of beholding the Lord Jesus transfigured, each one had to come down from the Mount—the Lord Jesus and Peter going to crosses, James to the sword, and John exiled to lonely Patmos. The same principle applies to us. We are given a glimpse of the glory and reality of the truth reckoned upon, and then we are taken into God’s processing so that the truth may be as real in us as it is to us.
Through His purposeful dealings with us, our objective reckoning upon the truth becomes subjective experience in our lives. As we count upon our old man having been crucified at Calvary, and our having died unto sin on the cross, we become progressively cross-centered Christians. As we count upon our new life in the Lord Jesus, we develop into Christ-centered Christians. The path of the cross is the path of growth.
In our failures, we learn more of what self is and thereby come to hate the natural, Adamic life. Then it is that we are taught to glory in the cross, by which we are freed from the old life’s influence, as well as the grip and lure of this world. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). Reckoning is the only means of escaping the entanglements of this world. It takes the separation of the cross, and our abiding in Christ.
As the Holy Spirit applies the cross within, He takes us through difficulties and chastenings. We must face up to the fact that the cross has only suffering and death as its ministry. But when we realize that “alway delivered unto death” means the daily crucifixion of self, we begin to glory in the resultant freedom. “Now no chastening [child-training] for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Heb. 12:11). If we are going to receive the benefit of the cross, we must go through the suffering of the cross. That is where we come to know and appreciate the Holy Spirit as our Comforter. He comforts us in the very crucifixion He applies, and we learn to glory in the cross that crucifies. The work of the cross causes us to “rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3).
“He shall teach you all things.” It is often the case that hungry believers, needy as they know themselves to be, are more eager for experience than they are for revelation. They want a minimum of truth and study, with a maximum of results. But the more experience-centered they become, the less truth-established they will be. The penalty of this wrong emphasis is self-centeredness instead of Christ-centeredness.
This sad and selfish condition develops when we endeavor to handle and control the truth that we see. But the truth of the Word does not respond to self. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God … neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). As we study, we are to rest in the Spirit of life in Christ. The Lord Jesus said, “The Spirit of truth … will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). There are those who even go so far as to attempt to use the Spirit. They want Him to give them “power,” and many other self-centered “experiences” and “blessings.” The Holy Spirit does not respond to such unholy aspirations.
“He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.” In all the vital work of the Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ, His intention and purpose is to glorify the Son in the individual members. The Lord Jesus prayed to His Father, “I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them” (John 17:9, 10).
How is He glorified in redeemed sinners? Our new birth means that each one of us is a new creation in Christ, at which time the Comforter enters our spirit to abide forever (John 14:16). Spirit to spirit joined, we are “partakers of the divine nature.” At birth we are “babes in Christ,” but as we grow in Him we develop in likeness of life—thus glorifying the Son. …to be continued
