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Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTORY GOD'S SIDE AND MAN'S SIDE
Posted by Lev/Christopher on November 27, 2008 at 12:57am in The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life
INTRODUCTORY
GOD'S SIDE AND MAN'S SIDE
In introducing this subject of the life and walk of faith, I desire, at
the very outset, to clear away one misunderstanding which very commonly
arises in reference to the teaching of it, and which effectually
hinders a clear apprehension of such teaching. This misunderstanding
comes from the fact that the two sides of the subject are rarely kept
in view at the same time. People see distinctly the way in which one
side is presented, and, dwelling exclusively upon this, without even a
thought of any other, it is no wonder that distorted views of the whole
matter are the legitimate consequence.
Now there are two very decided and distinct sides to this subject, and,
like all other subjects, it cannot be fully understood unless both of
these sides are kept constantly in view. I refer, of course, to God's
side and man's side; or, in other words, to God's part in the work of
sanctification, and man's part. These are very distinct and even
contrastive, but are not contradictory; though, to a cursory observer,
they sometimes look so.
This was very strikingly illustrated to me not long ago. There were two
teachers of this higher Christian life holding meetings in the same
place, at alternate hours. One spoke only of God's part in the work,
and the other dwelt exclusively upon man's part. They were both in
perfect sympathy with one another, and realized fully that they were
each teaching different sides of the same great truth; and this also
was understood by a large proportion of their hearers. But with some of
the hearers it was different, and one lady said to me, in the greatest
perplexity, "I cannot understand it at all. Here are two preachers
undertaking to teach just the same truth, and yet to me they seem
flatly to contradict one another." And I felt at the time that she
expressed a puzzle which really causes a great deal of difficulty in
the minds of many honest inquirers after this truth.
Suppose two friends go to see some celebrated building, and return home
to describe it. One has seen only the north side, and the other only
the south. The first says, "The building was built in such a manner,
and has such and such stories and ornaments." "Oh, no!" says the other,
interrupting him, "you are altogether mistaken; I saw the building, and
it was built in quite a different manner, and its ornaments and stories
were so and so." A lively dispute would probably follow upon the truth
of the respective descriptions, until the two friends discover that
they have been describing different sides of the building, and then all
is reconciled at once.
I would like to state as clearly as I can what I judge to be the two
distinct sides in this matter; and to show how the looking at one
without seeing the other, will be sure to create wrong impressions and
views of the truth.
To state it in brief, I would just say that man's part is to trust and
God's part is to work; and it can be seen at a glance how contrastive
these two parts are, and yet not necessarily contradictory. I mean
this. There is a certain work to be accomplished. We are to be
delivered from the power of sin, and are to be made perfect in every
good work to do the will of God. "Beholding as in a glass the glory of
the Lord," we are to be actually "changed into the same image from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." We are to be
transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is
that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. A real work is to be
wrought in us and upon us. Besetting sins are to be conquered. Evil
habits are to be overcome. Wrong dispositions and feelings are to be
rooted out, and holy tempers and emotions are to be begotten. A
positive transformation is to take place. So at least the Bible
teaches. Now somebody must do this. Either we must do it for ourselves,
or another must do it for us. We have most of us tried to do it for
ourselves at first, and have grievously failed; then we discover from
the Scriptures and from our own experience that it is a work we are
utterly unable to do for ourselves, but that the Lord Jesus Christ has
come on purpose to do it, and that He will do it for all who put
themselves wholly into His hand, and trust Him to do it. Now under
these circumstances, what is the part of the believer, and what is the
part of the Lord? Plainly the believer can do nothing but trust; while
the Lord, in whom he trusts, actually does the work intrusted to Him.
Trusting and doing are certainly contrastive things, and often
contradictory; but are they contradictory in this case? Manifestly not,
because it is two different parties that are concerned. If we should
say of one party in a transaction that he trusted his case to another,
and yet attended to it himself, we should state a contradiction and an
impossibility. But when we say of two parties in a transaction that one
trusts the other to do something, and that that other goes to work and
does it, we are making a statement that is perfectly simple and
harmonious. When we say, therefore, that in this higher life, man's
part is to trust, and that God does the thing intrusted to Him, we do
not surely present any very difficult or puzzling problem.
The preacher who is speaking on man's part in this matter cannot speak
of anything but surrender and trust, because this is positively all the
man can do. We all agree about this. And yet such preachers are
constantly criticised as though, in saying this, they had meant to
imply there was no other part, and that therefore nothing but trusting
is done. And the cry goes out that this doctrine of faith does away
with all realities, that souls are just told to trust, and that is the
end of it, and they sit down thenceforward in a sort of religious
easy-chair, dreaming away a life fruitless of any actual results. All
this misapprehension arises, of course, from the fact that either the
preacher has neglected to state, or the hearer has failed to hear, the
other side of the matter; which is, that when we trust, the Lord works,
and that a great deal is done, not by us, but by Him. Actual results
are reached by our trusting, because our Lord undertakes the thing
trusted to Him, and accomplishes it. We do not do anything, but He does
it; and it is all the more effectually done because of this. The puzzle
as to the preaching of faith disappears entirely as soon as this is
clearly seen.
On the other hand, the preacher who dwells on God's side of the
question is criticised on a totally different ground. He does not speak
of trust, for the Lord's part is not to trust, but to work. The Lord
does the thing intrusted to Him. He disciplines and trains the soul by
inward exercises and outward providences. He brings to bear all the
resources of His wisdom and love upon the refining and purifying of
that soul. He makes everything in the life and circumstances of such a
one subservient to the one great purpose of making him grow in grace,
and of conforming him, day by day and hour by hour, to the image of
Christ. He carries him through a process of transformation, longer or
shorter, as his peculiar case may require, making actual and
experimental the results for which the soul has trusted. We have dared,
for instance, according to the command in Rom. 6:11, by faith to reckon
ourselves "dead unto sin." The Lord makes this a reality, and leads us
to victory over self, by the daily and hourly discipline of His
providences. Our reckoning is available only because God thus makes it
real. And yet the preacher who dwells upon this practical side of the
matter, and tells of God's processes for making faith's reckonings
experimental realities, is accused of contradicting the preaching of
faith altogether, and of declaring only a process of gradual
sanctification by works, and of setting before the soul an impossible
and hopeless task.
Now, sanctification is both a sudden step of faith, and also a gradual
process of works. It is a step as far as we are concerned; it is a
process as to God's part. By a step of faith we get into Christ; by a
process we are made to grow up unto Him in all things. By a step of
faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Divine Potter; by a
gradual process He makes us into a vessel unto His own honor, meet for
His use, and prepared to every good work.
To illustrate all this: suppose I were to be describing to a person,
who was entirely ignorant of the subject, the way in which a lump of
clay is made into a beautiful vessel. I tell him first the part of the
clay in the matter, and all I can say about this is, that the clay is
put into the potter's hands, and then lies passive there, submitting
itself to all the turnings and overturnings of the potter's hands upon
it. There is really nothing else to be said about the clay's part. But
could my hearer argue from this that nothing else is done, because I
say that this is all the clay can do? If he is an intelligent hearer,
he will not dream of doing so, but will say, "I understand. This is
what the clay must do; but what must the potter do?" "Ah," I answer,
"now we come to the important part. The potter takes the clay thus
abandoned to his working, and begins to mould and fashion it according
to his own will. He kneads and works it, he tears it apart and presses
it together again, he wets it and then suffers it to dry. Sometimes he
works at it for hours together, sometimes he lays it aside for days and
does not touch it. And then, when by all these processes he has made it
perfectly pliable in his hands, he proceeds to make it up into the
vessel he has purposed. He turns it upon the wheel, planes it and
smooths it, and dries it in the sun, bakes it in the oven, and finally
turns it out of his workshop, a vessel to his honor and fit for his
use."
Will my hearer be likely now to say that I am contradicting myself;
that a little while ago I had said the clay had nothing to do but lie
passive in the potter's hands, and that now I am putting upon it a
great work which it is not able to perform; and that to make itself
into such a vessel is an impossible and hopeless undertaking? Surely
not. For he will see that, while before I was speaking of the clay's
part in the matter, I am now speaking of the potter's part, and that
these two are necessarily contrastive, but not in the least
contradictory, and that the clay is not expected to do the potter's
work, but only to yield itself up to his working.
Nothing, it seems to me, could be clearer than the perfect harmony
between these two apparently contradictory sorts of teaching on this
subject. What can be said about man's part in this great work, but that
he must continually surrender himself and continually trust?
But when we come to God's side of the question, what is there that may
not be said as to the manifold and wonderful ways in which He
accomplishes the work intrusted to Him? It is here that the growing
comes in. The lump of clay would never grow into a beautiful vessel if
it stayed in the clay-pit for thousands of years. But once put into the
hands of a skilful potter, and, under his fashioning, it grows rapidly
into a vessel to his honor. And so the soul, abandoned to the working
of the Heavenly Potter, is changed rapidly from glory to glory into the
image of the Lord by His Spirit.
Having, therefore, taken the step of faith by which you have put
yourself wholly and absolutely into His hands, you must now expect Him
to begin to work. His way of accomplishing that which you have
intrusted to Him may be different from your way. But He knows, and you
must be satisfied.
I knew a lady who had entered into this life of faith with a great
outpouring of the Spirit, and a wonderful flood of light and joy. She
supposed, of course, this was a preparation for some great service, and
expected to be put forth immediately into the Lord's harvest field.
Instead of this, almost at once her husband lost all his money, and she
was shut up in her own house, to attend to all sorts of domestic
duties, with no time or strength left for any Gospel work at all. She
accepted the discipline, and yielded herself up as heartily to sweep,
and dust, and bake, and sew, as she would have done to preach, or pray
or write for the Lord. And the result was that through this very
training He made her into a vessel "meet for the Master's use, and
prepared unto every good work."
Another lady, who had entered this life of faith under similar
circumstances of wondrous blessing, and who also expected to be sent
out to do some great work, was shut up with two peevish invalid nieces,
to nurse, and humor, and amuse them all day long. Unlike the first
lady, this one did not accept the training, but chafed and fretted, and
finally rebelled, lost all her blessing, and went back into a state of
sad coldness and misery. She had understood her part of trusting to
begin with, but not understanding the divine process of accomplishing
that for which she had trusted, she took herself out of the hands of
the Heavenly Potter, and the vessel was marred on the wheel.
I believe many a vessel has been similarly marred by a want of
understanding these things. The maturity of Christian experience cannot
be reached in a moment, but is the result of the work of God's Holy
Spirit, who, by His energizing and transforming power, causes us to
grow up into Christ in all things. And we cannot hope to reach this
maturity in any other way than by yielding ourselves up utterly and
willingly to His mighty working. But the sanctification the Scriptures
urge as a present experience upon all believers does not consist in
maturity of growth, but in purity of heart, and this may be as complete
in the babe in Christ as in the veteran believer.
The lump of clay, from the moment it comes under the transforming hand
of the potter, is, during each day and each hour of the process, just
what the potter wants it to be at that hour or on that day, and
therefore pleases him. But it is very far from being matured into the
vessel he intends in the future to make it.
The little babe may be all that a babe could be, or ought to be, and
may therefore perfectly please its mother, and yet it is very far from
being what that mother would wish it to be when the years of maturity
shall come.
The apple in June is a perfect apple for June. It is the best apple
that June can produce. But it is very different from the apple in
October, which is a perfected apple.
God's works are perfect in every stage of their growth. Man's works are never perfect until they are in every respect complete.
All that we claim then in this life of sanctification is, that by a
step of faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Lord, for Him to
work in us all the good pleasure of His will; and that by a continuous
exercise of faith we keep ourselves there. This is our part in the
matter. And when we do it, and while we do it, we are, in the Scripture
sense, truly pleasing to God, although it may require years of training
and discipline to mature us into a vessel that shall be in all respects
to His honor, and fitted to every good work.
Our part is the trusting, it is His to accomplish the results. And when
we do our part, He never fails to do His, for no one ever trusted in
the Lord and was confounded. Do not be afraid, then, that if you trust,
or tell others to trust, the matter will end there. Trust is only the
beginning and the continual foundation; when we trust, the Lord works,
and His work is the important part of the whole matter. And this
explains that apparent paradox which puzzles so many. They say, "In one
breath you tell us to do nothing but trust, and in the next you tell us
to do impossible things. How can you reconcile such contradictory
statements?" They are to be reconciled just as we reconcile the
statements concerning a saw in a carpenter's shop, when we say at one
moment that the saw has sawn asunder a log, and the next moment declare
that the carpenter has done it. The saw is the instrument used, the
power that uses it is the carpenter's. And so we, yielding ourselves
unto God, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto Him,
find that He works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure; and we
can say with Paul, "I labored; yet not I, but the grace of God which
was with me." For we are to be His workmanship, not our own. (Eph.
2:10.) And in fact, when we come to look at it, only God, who created
us at first, can re-create us, for He alone understands the "work of
His own hands." All efforts after self-creating, result in the marring
of the vessel, and no soul can ever reach its highest fulfillment
except through the working of Him who "worketh all things after the
counsel of His own will."
In this book I shall of course dwell mostly upon man's side in the
matter, as I am writing for man, and in the hope of teaching believers
how to fulfil their part of the great work. But I wish it to be
distinctly understood all through, that unless I believed with all my
heart in God's effectual working on His side, not one word of this book
would ever have been written.
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This page was created on 4 May 2010
Updated on 4 May 2010
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