01.14. ESSAY NO. 14
ESSAY NO. 14 In Ephesians 5:1-33, Paul continues to insist that what God has been doing for Christians from past eternity puts them, if they are not to be infamous in-grates, under imperative obligation to live in return sober, godly lives.
Weakness of Non-Christian Religions
Many religions teach moral principles, but have no power to get them practiced. Though Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and pagan philosophies preach much morality, they lack provision for its realization. I have read that when the Roman moralist, Seneca, Paul’s contemporary, heard that Paul taught noble living, and that Paul actually practiced his teaching, he said: "Ah, if Paul does that, he really has something." And Judaism? It, too, lacks power to get its supreme moral and ethical code obeyed. It cannot be God’s final dealing with the problem of sin. His eternal program provides something better to follow.
Power of Christianity
If Paul lived as he taught, and Seneca did not live as he taught, why the difference? Paul answers: "I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me" (Php 4:13). Adam knew good and evil after he fell, but in the fall he had lost the power to do good or to avoid evil. By restoring this power to Adam’s race in Christianity, God overcomes the fatal weakness of all other religions. "With men this (the power to regulate self) is impossible; but with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26). That is, men have never been able to devise a social order with which to conquer their flesh; but with God’s order, they may do so. It is as impossible for men to live Christian lives before they are born of the Spirit as it is for them to live fleshly lives before they are born of the flesh.
What is the nature of this Christian power? After God himself in grace had done the groundwork on earth, Christ came to earth that he as suffering man might add to the vital human touch (suffering men do not easily forget those who suffer with them), and finally the Spirit on Pentecost, bringing to a climax all that had preceded, with a burst of power inaugurated perfected Christianity. And only as a Christian can fallen man gear into God’s power and be enabled to live as he thinks he should live. He has two master helps: Gratitude to God for delivering him from condemnation and the indwelling Spirit to enable him to win over the habit and power of racially acquired and individual sin. Not until Christians utilize both of these uniquely Christian aids can they be perfect as God is perfect. These two are not luxuries for favored saints, but necessities for all saints. Christians who are not more spiritual than ancient Jews could be are not using all the power to which they have access. Probably the unused power of the Holy Spirit exceeds the unused power of atomic energy. Only God knows how much this loss of power has crippled and is crippling his church. Saints, independent of this superhuman power, can no more grow up "into the fullness of Christ" than aliens independent of God’s power as it applies to them can become Christians. God is an exact economist and gives to both only what is necessary. Is it not a perversion of the gospel and a falling away from grace for Christians to try to do in the power of the flesh what the Bible teaches must be done in the power of the Spirit? According to Galatians 3:3-5, precisely this, rather than committing odious sins, is "falling from grace." The constitutional promise of the Old Covenant was the coming of the Messiah; the constitutional promise of the New Covenant is the coming of the Spirit to take up residence in the temple of God. In due time God kept both promises. "Because we are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6). "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Romans 8:9). Is it not as great a sin and as big a mistake for a Christian to refuse Christ’s Spirit as it is for a sinner to refuse his blood? If it is fatal for an alien to reject God the Son, why is it not as fatal for a Christian to reject God the Spirit? Do not both reject God the Father? Can the gospel produce Christians who are up to God’s eternal standard with its climatic power reduced?
"In the Power of the Holy Spirit" The Bible often personally connects grace with God, suffering with Christ, and power with the Spirit. Christ says to his apostles just before Pentecost: "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you" (Acts 1:8). Paul tells the Ephesians he is praying that they may be "strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man," and that they may avail themselves to God’s ability to bless them beyond their conceiving, "according to the power that worketh in us" (Ephesians 3:16-20). Paul declares that he preaches "in the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:19). And he prays that the Roman saints "may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:13). The Lord without working miracles "hath power to make him (a weak brother) stand" (Romans 14:4). As God chooses to work in nature without the miraculous, but not without the mysterious and the supernatural, so he chooses to work in Christianity. "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth" (Mark 4:26). No more in religion than in nature is God limited to miracles. As the surf-waves along the beach, before they flood the beach, must be backed up by the non-miraculous tide, so fallen man must have the non-miraculous "renewing of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5) before he becomes a Paul.
"Imitators of God"
"Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, even as Christ loved you" (Ephesians 5:1). An exhortation to live as God lives and to love as Christ loves! "It is by no breath, turn of eye, wave of hand" that this exhortation can be realized. The "old man" may be trained to imitate God outwardly in some things, as parrots may be trained to talk as men talk, but such imitation lacks reality and life. Only "beloved children" who are "born anew" with the nature of their Father can climb this lofty peak. The exhortation necessarily implies the truth set forth in this paper. Only Spirit-born and Spirit-enabled men need consider it; it is not intended for others. "Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5).