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.
