June 24
“For the death that He died He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so, consider [or reckon] yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:10-11)
Continuing quoting from The Green Letters on the utter sinfulness of self:
SELF
J. C. Metcalfe: “Many a young Christian, who has not been warned of this necessary voyage of discovery upon which the Holy Spirit will certainly embark him (Rom. 7), has been plunged into almost incurable despair at the sight of the sinfulness which is his by nature. He has…rejoiced greatly in the forgiveness of his sins, and his acceptance by God; but sooner or later he begins to realize that all is not well, and that he has failed and fallen from the high standard….He begins to know something of the experience which Paul so graphically describes, ‘What I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I’ (Rom. 7:15), and, in consequence, he feels the bottom has fallen out of his Christian life; and then perhaps the Devil whispers to him that it is just no good his going on, because he will never be able to make the grade. Little does he know how healthy his condition is, and that this shattering discovery is but the prelude to a magnificent series of further discoveries of things which God has expressly designed for his eternal enrichment. All through life God has to show us our utter sinfulness and need, before He is able to lead us on into realms of grace…”
Self-revelation precedes diving revelation – that is a principle for both spiritual birth and spiritual growth. The believer who is going through struggle and failure is the Christian who is being carefully and lovingly handled by His Lord. He is being taken through the experience (years in extent) of self-revelation and into death… God works by paradox. Success comes via failure, life springs out of death, etc. The only element in a believer’s life which crumbles is that which has to go anyway – the new life can never be harmed or affected. This disintegration is something the believer cannot enter into nor engineer on his own – self will never cast out self. He has to be led into it by the mercy of the Holy Spirit – into failure; abject and total….So often the means utilized by the Spirit is an unsaved mate, or even a saved one! Or poor health, and yes, good health too! A thousand and one things are used by Him – in fact, everything (Rom. 8:28-29), to bring out the worst in us, ultimately enabling us to see that the Christian life has to be “not I, but Christ.” People, circumstances, etc., are never the cause of failure. Self’s reaction to them is the cause, and the one problem to be dealt with.
We will spend one more day on the total incapability of the self and then move on a one or two other topics from the Green Letters.