Chapter 63—The Spirit’s Goal – Comment
THERE is a line of thought from our previous consideration, often repeated by our author that identifies the core to our foundational understanding:
The joyful and dependent believer is resting in the positional truth that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). Now he is beginning to receive the reality of that freedom in his daily life.
THE operative word there is “resting” – this is the indicator of our faith as it rests in our position in Christ, the source from which all Christ-centered reality flows. He goes on to say:
How is this Spirit-wrought “not I, but Christ” life experienced? When one is reckoning within the scope of identification with Christ, the Holy Spirit inevitably transmits the finished work of both death and life to the Christian. The self-life is going to feel the cut of the Cross, while the growing life of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus within will be manifested in sacrifice for others.
THE operative word here is “reckoning” – an accounting term, counting a fact as being so! “Reckoning” is “resting” in the established work of Christ on the Cross, counting it as so that it is “No longer I, but Christ” and …“the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20) These marvelous scripture and doctrinal truths are like pieces of a puzzle, building blocks that bridge the Christian life as it is “lived in the middle.”
I RECENTLY shared several quotes from a New Growth Press book titled Relationships: A Mess Worth Making (LFTG, 12/22/23). In that book Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp describe and illustrate the “Replacement Factor” – the “putting off the old man” (self) and “putting on Christ” – the Holy Spirit’s process of renewal as we live “life in the middle” between the “already” and “not yet” (Eph. 4: 22-24). There, Lane and Tripp tell us:
“Already” Jesus has come to provide salvation for us, but his saving work is “not yet” complete. “Already” the power of sin has been broken, but the presence of sin has “not yet” been eradicated. “Already” God has established his kingdom in our hearts, but that kingdom has “not yet” fully come. ….Our life …is always life in the middle. We are always [living] in the tension between God’s “already” and “not yet” grace. And we have no more control over the “not yet” than we have had over the “already.” …We live as broken people who are being repaired …always thankful for what has already been done, but ever aware of our need for what we have not yet been given.
LIVING in the middle means:
That God will take us where we have not planned to go in order to produce in us what we could not achieve on our own.
ALL the above is from the chapter titled, “Hope” – an apt title. Hope (confidence) in the promised “not yet” that is based of the surety of the “already” (Position In Christ), as I live all of Life in the Middle:
“At some point, every [situation] brings you to the end of yourself, and with God there is no healthier place to be.“ (Relationships: A Mess Worth Making – Timothy Lang/Paul Tripp)
At some point, every [situation] brings you to the end of yourself, and with God there is no healthier place to be. When I am willing to confess how weak I am, I am most ready to reach out for the grace that can only be found in Christ. He was willing to follow his Father’s plan and become weak so that, in our moments of weakness, we could receive his strength. This difficulty-weakness-strength dynamic is why we need so much encouragement…. We get blindsided by difficulties, discouraged by our weakness, and end up losing sight of what we have been given in Christ.
THIS is what Miles Stanford is referring to when he says: “The self-life is going to feel the cut of the Cross, while the growing life of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus within will be manifested in sacrifice for others.”
WE will pick up from there in our continuing look at “The Spirit’s Goal” in the next comment. Until then…..
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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