Reading: Gen. 3:1-7; 22-24; Romans 8:1-2.
The longer one lives and the more one
thinks about things, the surer one becomes that the
supreme issue which governs everything between God and
man is that of life. Our Scripture says here that life is
a law, and it further says that that life is in the hands
of the Holy Spirit - "the law of the Spirit of
life...".
A law is a fixed and established
principle. It has potentialities. It means that, if you
are adjusted to it and governed by it, certain results
are inevitable; that the potentialities which it contains
will most surely find expression when that law is
established. So that, what we have here is, that the mark
of things being of God the Holy Spirit is life. If
anything is of God the Holy Spirit, it will live; its
chief characteristic will be life. That is a law, an
established principle. What is according to God lives,
having God's own life in it, and that is, as a principle,
a rule of guidance. It is a principle for the direction
of the people of God.
But there is another thing we must notice
at the outset. This is that, in the matter of life as a
fixed principle, the life is in Christ Jesus: "The
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." Upon
that fact, the Scriptures are more than emphatic, that
all that is of God is in Christ Jesus; and inasmuch as
the mark of all that is of God is life, then life is in
Christ Jesus and in Him alone.
The Expression of Life in Christ
Sevenfold
Our object, then, is to investigate
life and to note life in its components, or how the law
of life works out from its beginning to its consummation,
and we shall see, as the Lord enables and leads, that the
components of life are sevenfold. They are like the
colors of light led out by the prism, and Christ Jesus is
the prism. We come to see what life is in its manifold
expression, what the law of life is in its sevenfold
expression, in Christ Jesus. To know life, we must know
Him, we must understand Him. To know Him truly is to know
life. Thus, in keeping with this whole truth, it becomes
the work of the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of life, to
reveal Christ Jesus, to make Him known, to lead us into
Him as the life. But this making known and this leading
into Him is a matter of spiritual education, and it may
be spread over a whole life-time. I think it is because
of this that we have certain expressions in the Word of
God which would indicate that while in the commencement
of a true life in God we both enter into life and the
life enters into us, we are also called upon to take
other actions as we go on, in relation to life. Even the
people of God are from time to time called upon, as Moses
called upon the children of Israel, to choose life. There
are certain crises in our spiritual experience when it
becomes a necessity to deliberately choose life. Two ways
are there before us, and we have to repudiate one quite
positively and as positively choose the other. Then again
we are exhorted to lay hold on life. Further there are
those scriptures which indicate that life is still
future, that we have not yet attained, that life lies on
before us. We have to go on unto life, we have to inherit
eternal life, and that is because the knowledge of Christ
is progressive, ever growing. It is an education, and it
reaches from the moment of our receiving God's free gift
of eternal life in Christ Jesus to no set future moment,
but on, ever on, into the hereafter, when we may still be
eating of "the tree of life, which is in the midst
of the Paradise of God." This life has no end, is
never exhausted, and its furthest bound is never reached.
But we are concerned with this little span here on the
earth, which constitutes our time for education in
respect of the law of the Spirit of life, the law of
life, and that education is in connection with this
sevenfold expression of that law. We have said that it is
Christ Jesus.
Now, Christ Jesus bounds all time as life,
and whenever God takes in hand to reach His end, it is
always, and all along, by means of what Christ is. That
is to say, God always moves toward His end by bringing
out some further component of Christ as life, something
more of what His Son is, and progress therefore toward
fullness of life is by means of ever fresh discoveries of
what Christ is. God never moves toward His end apart from
Christ. Whatever He uses is something that is Christ in
its essence, and so, by means of Christ, He brings on
toward the consummation of His Purpose.
We move, then, on to very familiar ground
in the book of Genesis. Genesis is comprehensive of the
whole ground of death and life, and its comprehensiveness
in those matters is gathered up into seven persons, each
of whom brings Christ into view in some specific aspect
of life. Each aspect of life as brought out in each of
these seven persons is a part of the whole law of life,
and the whole law of life is comprehended in these seven
persons in this sevenfold way. The seven are from Adam to
Joseph.
The Intention of God in Adam
We must note at the outset that Adam and
Christ stand right at the beginning to govern all the
ages. We are told that Adam was a figure of Him that was
to come. Adam was a shadow, so to speak. Somewhere, with
the eternal light shining from behind, stood Christ
Jesus, and there the reality and the shadow stood looking
right down all the ages, to govern all the ages as to
God's thought.
The law of life in Christ Jesus is
represented by the "tree of life" in the book
of Genesis. Adam was intended to show forth the way of
life. If Adam had not chosen another way, instead of
God's intended way for him, Adam would have shown how
life works, how the law of life operates, and how, by the
operation of that law, God reaches His end; ever and
always by a living way, the way of life through the
operation of a fixed principle. But Adam failed: he who
was to be the representation, yes, and the embodiment, of
that law and that way of life failed, and he now stands
to represent the way of death. But Christ, known to us
now as the last Adam, stepped in, and He Himself is the
embodiment of that law of life. He sets forth the way of
life. He accomplishes what Adam failed to accomplish and
reaches God's end by the pathway of life.
Now, having stated all that is
preliminary, we begin with Adam as the first of the
sevenfold expression of the law of life; but of course we
have to consider Adam now in the opposite direction and
learn what life is, and what the law of life is, by a
contemplation of how the opposite operates in his case.
We shall be led to the positive through the negative, to
the true by way of the false.
In order to understand the beginning of
life or of death, we must perceive the nature of the
temptations of Adam and of Christ; for, if one thing is
true in these temptations, it is that the whole question
of life and death, death and life, was bound up in them,
nothing less than that. So we must for a few minutes
consider these temptations anew. We consider the
temptation of Adam in order to understand the temptation
of Christ.
Satan's Approach to Man
Firstly, there is the form of the tempter
and the temptation. In Genesis 3 we see exactly where and
why Eve and Adam fell. It is very simple on the face of
it. Perhaps that is its chief strength and subtlety. The
occasion was something apparently good. Satan's
temptations and seductions are usually presented in a
form which makes the object in view something to be
desired for good. Always remember that. I doubt whether
Satan has ever yet tempted or seduced an individual by
letting that individual know the dire consequences of
falling. He always pursues exactly the opposite course,
and brings the temptation and the seduction in a form
which would appeal to the human judgment as something to
be desired for good. The trouble is always that man only
sees the THING: Christ saw Satan; and when the
temptation came as something suggested, presented as
being desirable for good, Christ saw through it and
behind it, and said, "Get thee behind me,
Satan." Now, I hardly think it necessary to press
that, and to say to you that if ever Satan is going to
seek to mislead you, ensnare you, seduce you, carry you
away from the way of life, he will invariably do it by
bringing up a good proposition, a thing which to your own
human judgment is a good thing. It is a very clear and
significant implication that, whenever we want to have
our own way, we always give a very good argument for it.
That is to say, we always bring up something that is good
to throw into the balances with it. I say that is
significant. Never yet has a man or woman gone wrong
without having a good reason for going wrong, that is,
from the human standpoint. Always an argument follows,
and that gives the whole thing away.
Now, we know that the temptation was first
made to the faculty of acquisitiveness, the power to
acquire. In this case, it was to acquire knowledge. Now,
beloved, to know is not evil in itself, although, of
course, it would have been better for man had he never
known certain things, or had a certain kind of knowledge.
But I do not think that this matter hangs primarily upon
the kind of knowledge that was possessed. It started with
a desire to know, the appeal was to that power to
acquire, to have, to possess; and here it was to possess
knowledge. But, while knowledge in itself is not evil,
there were hidden elements here in this case. What lay
behind this instance was the motive to possess; that is,
to possess so as to be no longer dependent upon, or
subject to God. The design was to effect a change of
position, to have another position. That is what lay
behind this temptation. It was a direct blow at man's
dependence upon God, man's subjection to God; or, to put
it the other way, it was a direct blow at God's position.
The Impugning of God's Character
Then there was something further, a hidden
insinuation, and that in respect of two things. Firstly,
there was an insinuation regarding God's love. Buried
right deep down in this temptation there was a calling
into question the love of God. The implication was that
God, who professed to love, to be so solicitous for the
good of His creatures, was really withholding the best
and the highest and the fullest, was really holding their
lives in a straitness which need not be, and which was
arbitrary. Really God was not love, for a God who does
that is not love. Now, I am not saying that all this was
recognized, but I am saying that the whole of the
Scriptures as well as of human history bears it out.
Satan's first basic, subtle, diabolical assault is always
upon the love of God, and he never gives up that assault.
You and I will never on this earth be in the place where
we are altogether immune from the possibility of being
tempted about that. Do you tell me that God is love? Look
at this and that and that! What does it spell but
limitation, and your having less than you could have and
ought to have?
Then it was an insinuation as to God's
veracity; that is, as to whether God is true, whether God
can really be trusted. "Hath God said...?" Now
you see what happens. In the hour of temptation, God's
goodness is always impugned, and God's truth is always
brought into question, and all other tokens of His love,
His veracity, are always obscured. The obvious answer to
anybody alive and awake was, Oh no! look, look
everywhere; everywhere there are evidences and tokens of
God's love: I have plenty of proof of the love of
God if I like to contemplate it, if I like to sit down
and think about it and weigh things up. But how many of
you have ever done that in the hour of trial, and found
your escape that way? Is it not true that, in the hour of
trial, of temptation, of stress, of assault, all the
blessings that have ever been are obscured? Somehow or
other, a mist is spread over them, a fog bank, a smoke
screen, and you only see your present adversity and the
difficulty of the moment. You are obsessed with a
question about God and His love and His faithfulness, His
truth. I believe that this is why Jesus, in the final
revelation, is called "Faithful and True" (Rev.
19:11). It is the great title of triumph in man; the
triumph in man over all this work of Satan which raises
for ever and aye the question as to God's love and God's
truth. His title has as its foundation all that lies
behind such words as these: "I am he that liveth; I
became dead." But wait a moment: listen to this cry:
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
That is the hour of temptation, the hour of darkness for
Him. How did He emerge from it? Not as one who has
entertained and nursed Satan's suggestion as to the
breakdown of God's love and the failure of God's
faithfulness, but victor over the sum of his suggestions
and insinuations in an hour such as you and I will never
know. He comes forth and becomes the embodiment of those
features, faithful and true.
The Real Object in View
Well, here is this double
insinuation, blinding to all the mercies and all the
goodness of God. Then you see this further hidden thing.
It was Satan's subtle, hidden way of putting God out of
His place and getting into that place himself. It is very
clear when you think about it. That is exactly what
happened. God was deposed and Satan put in His place, and
that is exactly what Satan was after. You see, he came
in, as he usually does, with what was a question about
God, and then, found an ear open, a listening ear - oh
the peril, the disaster, of an ear inclined to Satan, a
parleying with Satan! Christ Jesus never did it. Finding
an ear open to his question, he swiftly moved, and
followed up that small advantage with a statement which
was a lie, a positive lie: "Ye shall not surely
die." He is trying to get down to the convictions
now, to drive home the superficial advantage, to register
something deeper down. "Ye shall not surely
die." That, again, is not left, but is followed at
once with something else, a truth in a wrong position.
"God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof... ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Perfectly
true! Did not God say later on, "The man is become
as one of us, to know good and evil." But that truth
was in its wrong position, and the terrible, the dire
consequences were not revealed. The fact of knowing is
not the point, but the becoming possessed of knowledge by
a way that is contrary to God, knowing in a way which
puts you apart from God, which alienates from God and
alienates God from us. It is knowing at the instigation
of Satan with a subtle, hidden intention to make
independent of God; and when once man has become
independent of God, Satan has secured his end: He is in
the place of God.
Now, beloved, this is the way of death,
and it is all summed up in one word: the way of death is
a way that turns from God to self and to independence;
independence of judgment, independence of desire, and
independence of will. Hence "The soul that sinneth,
it shall die"; mind, heart, will. Independence of
God is the way of death; having a mind of our own, having
a judgment of our own, holding to our own position,
clinging to our own conclusions. Oh what a realm that
opens up! It opens up the whole question of the sovereign
Headship of the Lord Jesus in respect of the Church,
which is His Body, and forbids individual members of that
spiritual Body to be in any way in independence. It
touches, of course, much more than that. The way of death
is Adam's way, toward self in the matter of judgment,
toward self in the matter of desire, toward self in the
matter of will.
Christ the Exemplar of the Way of Life
Now, this brings us to Christ, to see life
working in the last Adam in the opposite position to that
of the first Adam, to see the way that He took. Oh,
always remember Satan's object in temptation. It was true
in the case of the Son of God and it is true in the case
of every one of us. We must get right down to the thing
that Satan is after. I feel that a very great deal of our
explanation and exposition of the temptations of the Lord
Jesus has not gone far enough. It has stopped short of
the ultimate point, and, while it may be helpful, it
misses the mark. We must recognize that the all-governing
object in Satan's tempting of the Lord Jesus was death,
nothing less than that. He was out for His life. He was
out to make it impossible for Him to be the life of men.
He was out, so to speak, to stop the stream of life at
its very spring. The temptations always had in view the
question of life. Satan was out for death. That is why he
is described in the Word as "him that had the power
of death" (Heb. 2:14); something that he is wielding
against the sons of God. But see Christ's way. His way
was ever from self and from independence to the Father,
to God. One of the sublime things to be noted in His life
is that; how always, without hesitation or reservation,
He turned from self to the Father, from any proposed line
of independence to dependence upon the Father. Nothing
out from Himself was His life attitude. It was a fixed
thing with Him: no consulting of self, no consideration
for self, no self-arguments, no self-desires, no
self-will; but ever with Him it was, "not my will,
but thine..."; "I am come to do thy will";
"I delight to do thy will, O my God": utterly
away from self and from independence to God. You see,
that lies right at the heart of the temptations at the
beginning of His ministry. The temptation was to act of
Himself, out from Himself, independently of God, but He
brought the issue back every time to the one point: God
has made known His mind in the matter: God has expressed
Himself in this connection: it is written, it is written,
it is written. God is the final court of appeal in every
matter, not my convenience, not my comfort, not my
advancement, not my good, not my self-realization, not my
purpose; not even my life, nothing but the Father.
Conformity to Christ, beloved, is the
supreme factor in the law of life in Christ. That is the
law of life in Christ - always away from self and our own
souls unto God; away from our own reasoning, our own
desiring, our own willing. That is conformity to the
image of God's Son. That is very practical. When we speak
of being foreordained to be conformed to the image of His
Son, we may perhaps think that this is some secret,
hidden, imperceptible thing which is taking place under
the hand of the Holy Spirit without our knowledge, but
that is not the truth. That conformity to the image of
God's Son comes in along the line of definite choice,
deliberate choice. It comes through following the law
which governed the Son of God - ever away from self to
God, away from all independence of mind and heart and
will to Him. And God presses the test in a very practical
way.
This, then, is "the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus." What is this first aspect
of the law of the Spirit of life as brought out in Adam
and in Christ? It is a law of an initial, a full, a
continuous and a final subjection to the Lord. That is
the way of life. Satan says that is the way of
curtailment, the way of limitation, the way of losing
things: God says that is the way of life. Satan's way
proved a way of death and the life was cut off and
held in reserve for such as would take the way of life,
or who would establish God's fixed principle of life. He
is Lord, He is sovereign. It is established beyond
question or doubt or argument. God is love and God is
true. Move one hair's breadth from that and you
move from life. Hold to that whatever it means and you
go through into life.