“O the depth
of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of
God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways
past tracing out!” (Rom. 11:33; A.S.V.).
“Unto me, who am less than the least of all
saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the nations
the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8).
We begin again, with the Lord’s help, with “The
unsearchable riches of Christ.” Having noted that
this word “riches” is linked with a number of
things in the New Testament, we have commenced our
meditation with the first of these connections, “the
riches of His grace.” We have said a little about
the basic character of grace. Something about the works
of grace and the works of law, and we have gone on to
look at God’s work of grace, of His finishing His
work for man before ever man comes into the picture at
all and is then called into the work which God has
finished. This is the grace of God.
Now, for a few minutes, let us look at the free action of
the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Grace. You know, do you
not, that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Grace?
(Heb. 10:29). What does it mean that the Holy Spirit is
the Spirit of Grace? It simply means that the Holy Spirit
is that Spirit of grace which came from God and is freely
given to us through faith. Again, here is the Grace of
God. We shall never earn nor merit the Holy Spirit. He is
freely given to faith. Although it may sound like
repetition and labouring the point, I do want that we
should be impressed with this: that the Holy Spirit is
given freely as the Spirit of Grace. He is the One Who
brings to us from God all that Grace means. If we have
the Holy Spirit in possession, in-dwelling, we have in
Himself, in His very Person and Presence all that Divine
Grace means. He is That Spirit of Grace.Now, with Him, we have the free
action of God. The Bible begins in a very simple way, so
simple that you hardly notice it. It is something
written, something set down, and you read it and you
hardly know or notice what you have read. ‘Now the
earth was without form, and void; and darkness was over
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God brooded upon
the face of the deep,’ and on you go. What was there
in that condition of things to merit the Presence and
action of the Holy Spirit? The initiative was all with
the Spirit of God over against a set of conditions
utterly contrary to Himself. Yet this brooding was a very
active thing, a very energetic thing, a very purposeful
thing; in a word, the Spirit of God brooding, hovering
over that state of things was the Presence of God to
change the whole situation, because God wanted it
changed. That was all. He just wanted it changed. So He
took the matter in hand and there was not only the lack
of merit, but plenty of demerit. We do not know, but
there has been surmising, perhaps guessing, perhaps right
guessing, that that state of things was due to some
judgment which had come upon the creation, which we may
not speculate about at all. But, nevertheless, there was
a state which was altogether contrary to the mind of God
and the state of things could do nothing about it for
itself. It took the free action of the Holy Spirit, just
the free, voluntary, unearned initiative and action of
the Spirit of God to bring about a new beginning.
Now, dear friends, you and I were here in such a state,
and we believe that there are multitudes in that
position, but as we believed, we were saved, were born
anew, became children of God. Who would say we are a new
creation in Christ? And how did it happen? Did we go up
into heaven to call Him down? Did we go into the deep to
bring Him up? Did we go into the uttermost parts of the
earth to find Him and persuade Him? We really did nothing
about it at all. We are where we are and what we are by
an action of grace altogether apart from anything that we
did in the matter. He did it, He did it all. We did
nothing toward it, indeed our condition was all against
God’s thought and God’s mind and yet He took
the initiative and He did it by His Spirit. That is the
Spirit of Grace, you see, taking things in hand to have
them changed, to make a beginning in order to have things
not as they were, but as God intended and intends them to
be.
That is all very
simple, is it not? But there is much more in that for our
heart-ravishing than we are aware of, because perhaps our
salvation is taken too cheaply, or taken too much for
granted. It is those people who know best, more than
most, what a ruin they were, what a chaos they were, what
darkness they were in, what disruption there was in their
lives—it is those people who know that their
salvation was nothing of their doing; it was the free
action of the Spirit of Grace.
Therefore, the Holy
Spirit has brought God to us. He is God, and as God He
has brought God to us, but what does that mean? In other
words, what are the riches of His grace? Now we are going
to dwell upon that in part. We will begin with another
three things with which we are so familiar: The Spirit of
Power, The Spirit of Wisdom, and The Spirit of Life.
(1.)
The Spirit Of Power
First of all, let us
begin with the Spirit of Grace coming as God to us; He
comes as the Power of God into our lives to do all that
God wants done. Now that is a simple statement, I know,
but He has come to do it. It is no more of ourselves to
do that than it was of the first natural, material
creation that brought about the change. No, it is no more
of ourselves, it is the Power of God that has taken this
thing up to do it. Now, is this too common place as to
evoke no response in our hearts? Are we not more and ever
more aware that whatever has been done or is being done
or has got to be done in our lives is by the Power of
God. And what great power it took, what Great Power of
God!
Now is there another power at work? Is darkness a power?
Is it a power? Well, perhaps you have some experience as
to be able to make it possible for you to say, “yes.”
I know that when you have got to move into this world,
where the Lord is neither known nor recognized nor
acknowledged, and apparently not wanted, you realize that
darkness is an awful power, “darkness covers the
earth, and gross darkness the people” (Isa. 60:2).
You see, the people are in darkness, and what can you do
about it? You can talk, you can do all that is in your
power, but you cannot break this dark thing until the
Spirit of Power as the Spirit of Light breaks in upon
that soul, on that life in that realm of darkness: it
needs the Power of God because darkness is an awful
power.
If that is true in this
side of the world where there has been so much light
given and so much truth given, and there is so much
Christian tradition, you just go to the other side of the
world—you go to those dark places of heathendom, and
you have only got to move in a country where the gospel
has not touched that side of the world, and you can feel
the darkness. It is evil. It is positively evil. It is
like that.
Now you may even feel
the darkness in a traditionally Christian world or realm.
I will never forget my first visit to the city of Rome;
and I wanted to see the various things. I went to the
Colosseum to see the place where the Christians were
flung to the lions. I went to this place and that place
and then I went into one of the most well-known and
prominent churches in the world, and, you know, I just
could not stay. After a very short time, I had to go out.
I felt physically ill, a sense of awful death had come
upon me physically, and I was glad to get out of the
place. It was an atmosphere of death and darkness to the
spirit. But, if that is true there, you go to other parts
of the world and you can cut the darkness. It is so
strong. It is a terrible thing.
When the Spirit of God as the Spirit of Light entered
into this darkness which was over the face of the earth,
the Spirit met an awful power, it was dealing with an
awful power, and it called for the exercise of the
Infinite Power of God to break that reign of darkness. It
called for the Divine Fiat, “Let there be light”—the
Word of His Power. Oh, how our hearts cry and crave for
more of the knowledge of That Power in His Word. If the
smallest percentage of all our speaking had the real
Power of God in it, something would happen. It would be a
Fiat, an act of God to speak. That is why the Lord Jesus
is called “the Word,” because where He comes as
the Word something happens, something happens! The devil
is exposed, as when He was here and the evil spirit cried
out, “I know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God”
(Mark 1:23–24). Hell felt the impact of the Word.
Men, sinful men, cried out in His Presence like that. But
the point is, darkness is a terrible power.
The disruption in our
humanity is a terribly strong thing. We are every day,
almost every moment of our lives, up against that breakup
in the humanity which is ours, or the breakdown of it,
the disorder of it, the disintegration of it, the
disruption of it. We know that our humanity is a broken
down thing. We are all the time striving to pick it up
and build it up and hold it up. We know it is a power, it
is a terrible power— the disorder and chaos in
ourselves. The Spirit of God came of His Own accord as
the Spirit of Power to deal with what no other power in
this universe could deal with; He came to change it. And
that is where we are in the new creation; it is what the
Spirit of God has undertaken to do with us. And surely
there are many in this place tonight who would echo the
words of the apostle, “Kept by the power of God”
(1 Peter 1:5). You know you would not be a Christian
today, you would not be going on with the Lord, you would
not be standing true to the Lord, but for the keeping
Power of God. In a world like this, there is such a power
against what is the Lord’s.
Well, this is the
Spirit of Grace, you see, that has come to take it over.
The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Grace is the custodian
of the Divine Perfection. The Spirit of Grace has taken
responsibility for realizing God’s End. Oh, thank
God for that. Knowing ourselves and the awful forces that
there are in our nature; knowing the world, or something
of it, and the awful forces that there are in this world;
and knowing the devil and something of his inimical
hatred and opposition to what is of God, to anything that
is of God, we certainly have to say, “Well, the only
possibility is if God Almighty does it, if God sees to
it.” And that is the Spirit of Grace that has come
to take up God’s End and to do it. It is the free
action of the Holy Spirit.
Now I wonder if I were to ask you what is in John 16 if
you would be able to answer. Well, you know John 16 says,
‘I am going away, I am going away. You see Me now,
but you will not see Me anymore. I return unto My
Father... for if I go not away, the Comforter will not
come unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you.’
And it goes on to say what He will do, when He is come.
It is all so natural it seems; it is all effortless; it
is just going to be in the order of things. He is coming
and He is going to do this and that; and that is
all there is to it. It is just that He is coming, ‘I
am going to send Him.’ And when we read John 16, we
know the content of the Word, but do we realize that all
this means that the Holy Spirit is taking over all that
Christ came to initiate, and to carry it right through to
its End. He is just going to do that for which He has
come for. He is the Spirit of Grace, and grace is just
God doing all that God can do without asking for any
merit or any payment. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of
that Grace as the Power of God, but that is one of the
riches, you see, it is the riches of His power through
grace.
We ought to get down our Bibles and have a word study,
and a passage study on that word, “Grace.”
Perhaps if I only just remind you, it will start off
something. Have you not noticed that grace is many-sided
in the New Testament, and one of the sides, or aspects of
grace is that it is an energy. It is a power. It is a
power-force in our lives. “There was given to me the
messenger of Satan to buffet me.” And although these
are not the exact words that the apostle used, this is
what he meant, ‘I cried out to the Lord, take this
away, because I cannot endure it. I shall not be able to
go on with this thing. I will not be able to get through;
this is too much, this is too great a burden. It is going
to limit me; it is going to spoil my life.’ And He
said unto me, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for
My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Grace
there is introduced as over against the conscious
inability of the apostle to go on with what he had been
called for, and what had been put on him to do. His
natural reaction was “I just cannot. If I have got
to have this thing, I just will not be able to go on.
Take it away, Lord. I asked Him three times to take it
away. Lord, take it away. Lord, take it away, life is
impossible.” He said, “My grace is sufficient
for thee,” everything is possible to grace. It is a
power, you see. It is an energy in the life. Perhaps, we
do know this in measure, but not as much as we ought. We
have had to say many times, but for the grace of God I
should have acted very differently than from what I did.
But for the grace of God, grace saved me. Grace kept me.
Grace held me. It is the Power of God that is the Spirit
of Grace. But that is where the riches began.
(2.)
The Spirit Of Wisdom
But what is the second
thing? Well, He is called the Spirit of Wisdom. Later we
will have something more to say about Wisdom. But for the
moment what does that mean, ‘What is Wisdom?’
To begin with what is Wisdom? Wisdom is more than
knowledge. You know, you may have a lot of knowledge and
have no wisdom at all. The people that have the most
knowledge have got the least wisdom. They are the most
foolish people with all their knowledge. What is Wisdom?
It is knowing how to do it. That is a simple formula for
wisdom. But as I have said, there is more to say in
another connection about wisdom, and here it is.
I remember many years
ago I heard or read of a little incident of a firm of
engineers who were given a contract to do a certain job,
and when it was done they sent in their account, more or
less general, and it was a very big account. And the
people who had to pay the bill sent it back and said,
‘Look here, this is not good enough, I want you to
explain this and tell us how you made up this bill.’
The firm sent back, ‘Materials so much, time of
workmen so much, and one or two other practical things’;
but when those things were added together, they did not
come up to the whole account. And they wrote underneath:
the balance—‘knowing how to do it.’
Ah, well, knowing how
to do it. It is quite a big part, you see, in the whole
business, is it not? They might have had the materials,
and they might have had the workmen, and they might have
had all the other things, but not knowing how to do it,
what would have been the good at all. They never would
have done it.
Wisdom is knowing how to do it, and here is the Spirit of
Grace. In this way Grace knows how to do it. We have to
learn a lot about that. But Grace knows how to do it.
Grace knows how to take up the problems and handle them
and solve them and negotiate the situation to a
successful and triumphant issue. Grace knows how to
handle the people concerned and, oh, to handle a thousand
other things which requires knowing how to do it.
Now I am quite sure
that I am speaking the truth, that you and I are brought
many times to the place where we do not know how to do
it, or what to do. We just do not know, we have not got
the wisdom for the situation. Perhaps you are in it now,
as I am. But the Spirit of Grace is the Spirit of Wisdom,
and He knows how to do it. We have had some experience
upon which we can say, ‘I never thought it would be
done, and I never imagined it would be done like that,
the way the Lord has done it. What the Lord has done, and
how He has done it. That never would have occurred to me
to do it like that.’ And when you think of it, was
there any better way that it could have been done. No,
the riches of His grace is the riches of His Wisdom.
If you and I do believe
in the grace of God brought to us by the Spirit of Wisdom—and
I almost hesitate to say it because I know I am involving
myself as well as you—we ought never to
despair of a situation. He knows how to handle
that difficulty. He knows how to get us through
that dilemma. He knows how to resolve that
matter. We do not know what to do, and in the presence of
this quandary, this problem, we cry out because it wants
something so deep and so great that it is altogether
beyond us. It may be that way in time, but certainly in
eternity we will say, ‘O the depth of the
Wisdom, how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways
past finding out.’
(3.)
The Spirit Of Life
The Spirit of Grace is
the Spirit of Power, and the Spirit of Grace is the
Spirit of Wisdom, and the Spirit of Grace is the Spirit
of Life. You may know that He is called the Spirit of
Life—“the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ
Jesus” (Rom. 8:2). By the Spirit, we are told that
Jesus was raised from the dead, through the eternal
Spirit—the Spirit of Life (Heb. 9:14).
We need not go back again for our analogy to the first
creation, the operation of the brooding Spirit, and the
result of the life in the creation. In the animate
creation and in man is the other kind of life. So the
result of the presence of the Spirit in the new creation
is like that. But here again, it is not just a Christian
truth, a Christian doctrine, the gift of eternal life is
not just one of those things that we come into when we
become Christians. This Resurrection Life is a continuous
abiding from day-to-day in power and experience. It is
put in all the tenses of the Christian life and
salvation: ‘We were raised together with
Him, that we should walk in newness of life.’ That
is in the past tense. We are now living in the
good of that, so that the life whereby Jesus conquered
death should be manifested in our mortal flesh. That is
in the present tense. And this goes on to the future, the
future of the great revelation of life in its final, full
and perfect expression. This Resurrection Life is not
something only that happened when we are saved. It is a
Power to work in us continually now. Well, you know it so
well in hearing and teaching, but this is the Spirit of
Grace.
Oh, thank God for the
Power of this Divine Life, which is demonstrating itself
so continually. And it seems to me, and I ought to have
said this in the past, but it seems to me, more and more
to be the case that the further you go on, the deeper
this life has to go, because you are taken so much more
deeply into death. It seems the experiences of going down
become deeper and greater than ever they had been before
and, therefore, the Power of His Resurrection becomes
greater all the way along. This is a very hopeful thing
for us. Perhaps some of you are feeling today that you
are touching bottom and perhaps you say, ‘Well, this
is the end.’ But do not forget that Resurrection is
a reality. It is not a theory. It is not just a doctrine.
It is an experience; it is a continuous experience. And,
dear friends, the great revelation in the Word of God is
that in the end it is going to be up and not down.
We know how it is going to finish, it is an elevated life
that we have. However, we may from time to time descend,
but we are going to ascend as many times as we descend.
But, as the Lord’s people, the final movement is an
ascension. Although this life is that way, it must seek
out and find its own Source of Life. Now where it began,
it will End. It began in God, and it will End in God.
This is the Spirit of Grace, and the Spirit of Life.
I know, dear friends,
that I have only said things with which you are familiar.
But sometimes our most familiar things, because of their
familiarity, lose their power and it is well to be
reminded of them.
Now I have mentioned
these three aspects of grace as three great and primary
riches of grace and of how rich they are. What I have
next to say, if the Lord wills, would take considerable
longer than we would have time for this evening, because
they really do take us into the depths.
So I will leave it
there for now and take it up later, but you have enough
to get on with what I have said this evening, or what I
trust the Lord has said. You go away and let your hearts,
as well as your minds, dwell upon this that has been
said; because we can really miss a lot, dear friends, if
we only hear and go away and do nothing with what we have
heard. All is for our good. But the real value will be
if, after tonight, we just recall these things, and go to
the Lord very quickly and say:
“Oh, Lord, if
what is said is true, if this is the truth, I look to You
to make that good in me. The Spirit of Power, and the
Spirit of Wisdom, and the Spirit of Life: You have said
that these are features of Your grace brought in the
Person of the Holy Spirit. This is the teaching of the
Word of God. It must not stay in the Book. It must come
into reality in my own life. Lord, I count on You to make
this true, to make this real, and so, more than ever,
make this a reality in me.”