An Inward Journey

This is the third teaching in a series having to do with the way. In the first I talked at some length about what man fell into, and why Christ had to enter into that condition in order to make a way out of it. Christ couldn’t just stand on the outside of our condition and call people out of sin and death, because man had no power or ability in himself to leave that condition. Christ had to first join Himself to man in our condition, and then open a way for us to leave it through His perfect obedience, His death, burial and resurrection. And it is only because He joined Himself to man by His Spirit, and made a way out of sin and death, that he could then become the leader and captain of our salvation, by drawing us out in the same way, and by the same power, with which He overcame. 

And it is for this reason that Christ is called our great High Priest who has “passed into the heavens,” (Heb 4:14) who has “entered behind the veil” (Heb 6:19), and who, having been lifted up, “draws all men to Himself.” He draws us to Himself by a gift or measure of His own overcoming life that is sown into man like a seed or talent or implanted Word. And when man surrenders, yields and obeys this implanted grace of God, then Christ leads us in the same way of the cross, and works in us the same victory over sin, death, and Satan that He accomplished in His own body. This is what He says in Revelation 3:21: “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”

In the second message I talked about how there is both a gift from above, and also a way to experience that gift; that is, a way to walk with it, and experience its power. The power of salvation, the very reality and substance of spiritual life and light and righteousness are all found in Christ, and nowhere else. Man was not created to produce these things, but rather to receive them, experience them, enjoy them, and manifest them before our Creator and to the rest of His creation. All of this is given to us in the form of a single precious pearl, a heavenly talent, a pinch of powerful leaven, a mustard seed, etc. This is the gift. This is what the kind Sower has thrown onto every kind of soil. 

But then there is the way that this gift is experienced. It is correct to say that Christ is the way, but there is a way for us to walk in Christ, to abide in Christ, to stay with Him and experience His heart-transforming work and power. This is NOT automatic or natural for man. In fact, it is so far from being natural for us, that Christ says that in order to follow Him, we must faithfully deny what comes naturally to us, and keep it always under the cross. And this leads me to something that I want to talk about today. 

Anyone who has read through the New Testament, and anyone who has spent even one day sincerely trying to do what is good, and to cease to do evil, is familiar with the reality that there are two very contrary things in man. The Bible refers to these things with a variety of different names. The New Testament speaks of an old man and a new man. It speaks of a first birth and a second birth. It speaks of flesh and spirit. Christ said, “That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is Spirit.” Elsewhere we read of a spiritual man, and a natural man, a first Adam and a second Adam, a spiritual law that works in the mind, and a contrary law that works in the members, etc. In the Old Testament these same two things are shown to us in a variety of types and shadows seen in two births, or two men, like Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, etc. 

Now, not everybody knows the Scriptural names or terms for these two things, and it is not necessary to do so. But every single person, even young children, in whatever country of the world, has an inward, self-evident experience of them. Because, since this is such an incredibly important thing, God has made it manifest and discernible to every human soul. On the one hand, man can see and feel what he is by nature, or what he is in the fallen state that he has inherited from Adam. We talked about this somewhat already. Man in his fallen state is a soul that has turned from the fountain of all life. He has lost all heavenly resources, and so become a source to himself of all kinds of pride, selfishness, envy and lust. Jeremiah says, “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

This is the natural man, and in this condition he can do no good, because every good thing comes down from above, from the Father of lights. Here he cannot naturally know the things of the Spirit because they are spiritually discerned. Here he can find no wisdom, because the wisdom from below is earthly, sensual and demonic. Here, in and of himself, he knows no true life, righteousness, humility, virtue, love, or anything of the kind, because all of these things belong exclusively to God. In John 3:27, John the Baptist said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” Jesus told the rich young man, “No one is good but One, that is, God.” (Mark 10:18) This condition of fallen man apart from the life and kingdom of God is called in Scripture “flesh,” and the nature that reigns in it is called “sin.” It is the nature or seed of Adam, and I repeat, every single human being knows this, to some degree, because God has made it self-evident. Every man and woman and child is familiar with the stirrings and movings, the pushings and pullings, the perspectives, motivations, desires, and ambitions that come from this evil nature and that press upon the heart of man. From the flesh arises every motion in the heart towards selfishness, pride, anxiety, envy, lust, restlessness, ambition, vanity, anger, emptiness, confusion, hopelessness, and every kind of painful striving and fretting.

Who doesn’t know these things? Who hasn’t tried to cover and hide them from the people around us? Who hasn’t felt their relentless power over their hearts and mind and actions, even after coming to believe in Christ? 

But at the same time, and in very much the same inward way of perception, who has not felt (to some degree), that there is something completely contrary that also stirs within them—sometimes even when we least expect or desire it—a life which manifests a contrary nature, with contrary stirrings, movings, pushings and pullings, motivations and desires? Who hasn’t felt (at least at some times of soberness and sincerity) convictions for evil, awakenings to eternity, calls to purity, discernment between good and evil, longings for freedom from sin, hunger for truth and righteousness? Can any one of you say that you have never felt these two very contrary things stirring in your heart, and striving for dominion? A donkey doesn’t feel two contrary natures striving within them. A wolf never feels convictions for sin, or awakenings for heavenly purity. But as for me, I have to confess that I began to feel these at a very young age, though I did not know what names to give them. I have to confess that though one of them has always led me to take pleasure in unrighteousness, the other has always set before me a very different way. From my earliest days, something within me has always set before me life and death, a blessing and a curse, and there has been a voice calling me to choose life. 

Now I ask again, what are these two things? I answer: The one is the nature of man in his fallen condition. It is Israel in Egypt, condemned to slavery, making bricks without straw, entirely subjected to the power of Pharaoh. The other is something entirely different. It has a very different nature, a very different power, and is moving in a different direction. It is our heavenly Moses who was sent IN to our condition in order to bring us OUT. It is like an Angel sent into Sodom to take us by the hand. It is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. Jesus came outwardly, took on our nature, fulfilled all righteousness, opened a bloody door, and poured out His Spirit. Jesus also comes inwardly, is sown into man like a grain of mustard seed, a treasure hidden in a field, a pearl of great price, a heavenly talent, and He cries out in our heart “I am the way! Come after Me! Abide in Me! Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Me out of here! And spiritual growth, or inward traveling in the way, involves the experience of the death of one of these, and the increase and reign of the other.

Now, before moving on, please allow me to quickly remove a common stumbling block out of your way, an error that I believe the enemy has employed to keep people from finding and experiencing these things I am describing. It is the idea (which seems to have become common in the church) that it is impossible for a Christian to have or experience two natures within him. It is said that God’s nature cannot dwell in the presence of evil in a Christian, and therefore as soon as we become believers, many say that there is only one nature in us. This sounds nice. I can see why it is an attractive idea, and I believe some people’s desire for it to be true has made them disregard their own daily experience. But it is a great mistake, and is a manifest contradiction to both Scripture and experience.  

It should not seem strange to us that the nature and presence of God can be in close proximity to the nature of evil in man. God is omnipresent. He is present in all places, at all times, and is never separated in terms of physical presence or proximity from evil. God is not absent from evil, but evil is absent from God, and is contrary to Him, because it doesn’t share His nature or life. The psalmist says, “If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there” (Psa 139:8). The Lord says in Jeremiah, “Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?” says the LORD; “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (23:24) The issue is not physical proximity. This has nothing to do with the matter. The issue is spiritual union, the sharing of a nature, mind, life, will, etc. In this way, God can be present where evil is present, and yet still have nothing to do with evil, and be perfectly separated from it.

From nearly all the parables, and from a large part of the New Testament, it is clear that the life of Christ, or the seed of the kingdom, or the implanted Word, comes to live in man when He is “in the midst of his enemies.” Psalm 110:2. It is a mustard seed, the smallest plant in a garden full of other vegetation. It is like Joshua, entering into a land already filled with the uncircumcised Philistine nature. There is something already alive in man when we receive Christ’s Seed of life, and that something can rightly be called a nature because it is of a particular kind, constitution, temperament, disposition, with specific qualities, appetites, attributes and boundaries concerning how it acts, feels, and is. This nature (as we have said) is called sin, flesh, or the old man. And yet there is a new and very different nature that is sown into man, which man begins to experience even when he continues to walk in much darkness and wickedness, and has a will and nature very contrary to Christ. This gift of God does not make the previous nature immediately disappear. Nor is it correct to simply call this first nature in Christians merely  immaturity, or the “unrenewed mind”.

The renewing of our mind is a very real and important thing, but when Paul is speaking to believers in Scripture—to Christians in the churches that he planted—he plainly tells them that flesh is still in them, the nature of sin is still in them, they can yield to it, they continue to live in it, and remain slaves to it. He tells them that the flesh in them sets its desires against the Spirit in them, and the Spirit sets its desires against the flesh. This is not just immaturity or lack of spiritual understanding. This is sin. It is a contrary nature that is still present (and too often predominant) in the heart of man. It came in through a birth, and the only way that it will disappear is through death. And here again is our journey.

More could be said about this, but I want to go on to talk about how to walk in the way. The reason that I spent so much time describing these two things that are in man, is because following Christ, abiding in Christ, walking with Him and in Him, staying close to Him, and not departing from Him, is going to involve: 1) on the one hand, a continual detecting and denying the motions, movements, desires, stirrings, lusts, passions, of the one nature, so that it is given no place to live, and grow and reign in us; and 2) on the other hand, a continual detecting, following, submitting, obeying, loving, and embracing the appearing of the seed or grace of Christ in us, so that it finds good soil and produces its increase, 30, 60, or 100 fold. This, in summary, is the way in which we must walk, or the “place” (so to speak) that we must stay in, or the covenant that we must keep, or what is required on our part to follow Christ in the way that He is. “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”

Here you see that Jesus insists upon the necessity of a denial of self. But this statement of Jesus would not make sense unless there were something OTHER THAN SELF present in man. We couldn’t deny self if self were the only thing in us. That would be like a horse trying to deny its horse nature. Or a cat refusing to be a cat. But you and I can indeed deny self, and take up a daily cross to self, resist and refuse and make no provision for self, precisely because there is something that is NOT self, which has been given to us to cling to and follow out. Please let this sink into your heart. We can turn from sin, because there is something else in us for us to turn to. We can resist the devil, because there is another Spirit that we can submit to. We can become free from flesh, because there is something stronger than flesh to which we can present ourselves as slaves. We can leave Egypt, because someone stronger than Pharaoh has come in to bring us out. 

Now this is precisely what Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans. He says that, though Christians have received grace, and should be walking in grace, and submitted to the power of grace, and though we should consider ourselves, and live as those who have died to sin, yet sin is still present in us, and we are very prone to obey its lusts. “Therefore,” he says to Christians, “do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (6:12-13). In verse 16 he says, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” And in 19, “For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.” And although he says in chapter 8 that, because of Christ’s work and the gift of grace in the heart, “we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh,” yet this clearly remains a great possibility. For, he immediately says, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

Here we see a denying of one thing, a resisting and not obeying of something that is called flesh or sin. And on the other hand, we see a yielding to, submitting to, presenting ourselves as slaves to another Spirit, or nature, or power that we find in ourselves. And it is by submission to this Holy Spirit, and being led and governed by the Spirit of God, that we experience His power putting to death in us the deeds of the body. This is precisely what Jesus is describing in the gospels: Deny yourself, keep self under my cross every day, and follow My Spirit out of it. This is what the author of Hebrews says in chapter 12, “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” Here something is laid aside, ignored, and something else is looked to and followed. Paul writes to Titus about these same two things. He says that the grace of God teaches all men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age by looking for the blessed inward appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. 

I know that these Scriptures are familiar to most of you, but my point in quoting them is that you see clearly how walking in the way, advancing in the way, and STAYING in the way, is not an automatic, instantaneous, and effortless accomplishment. Yes, all growth and change comes from the work or power of God in the soul of man, but we must walk in the way, and stay in the way, that the Lord has cast up for us. We have a role in this. Our role isn’t to produce life or light or transformation. But Scripture speaks plainly and constantly of a continual journey, a covenant we must keep, a race that we must run, a fight that we must fight. It speaks of a vine that we must abide in, a light that we must walk in, and it warns us that there are many ways to go astray or fall behind.

Christianity, my friends, is Christ. But Christ isn’t a status or position or club or a belief. Christ is a living Spirit who does a living work in the dead soul of man. He is a living covenant that brings about an ongoing death to that which should never have had a place in God’s creation, and the growth and government of a new life. Walking in this new covenant brings about an ongoing cleaning, purifying, healing, teaching, growing, and overcoming, AND an ongoing dying, losing, and becoming free from every plant in our hearts that the heavenly Father has not planted. Christ is a WAY to experience a death to one nature, and a life in another. And we must learn to walk with Him, to walk in His light, to stay in His light, to abide in His Word. John 8:31 — “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’” 

What I’m trying to describe to you, and hoping at the same time that the Spirit will make it more real in your hearts, is that it is one thing to believe in Christ and to begin our journey out of Egypt. And it is something even greater and more important, to live in Christ, walk with Christ, stay in Christ, walk in the covenant that is Christ, in such a way that the power of Christ overcomes everything in us that it overcame in Him. What did Christ overcome? He overcame his own individual will as a man, never doing His desires in the flesh, or speaking His own words, or doing his own works, but constantly submitting to the will of His Father. He overcame the weakness of a mortal body, being subject to the elements, to heat and cold, tiredness, hunger, painful emotions. He overcame every temptation and assault of the enemy, along with all of the evil, anger, accusation, malice, lies, and violence of wicked men. He overcame everything in Him that resisted the cup that he had to drink, and the baptism with which he had to be baptized, not just at the end of his 33 years, but every day of his life in the body. He overcame torture, crucifixion, death, hell, and the grave. And he did all of this so that He could lead us, by His own Spirit, in the very same way. He overcame so that we could overcome in Him. He was sanctified from all of these things, so that we could be sanctified in Him. And the way that we experience this is not by a mere belief in our mind, or a song that we sing about how Christ did everything so that we don’t have to do anything. No, the way that we experience this, is by walking in His Spirit, keeping in His light, denying what He denied, clinging to and following what He gave us. We do it by keeping the covenant, abiding in His Word, picking up His cross against all worldly desires and fleshly lusts, and letting His power bring us out of everything that he left behind in this world. 

And again, please don’t think that this has anything to do with legalism, or works religion. Legalism is when men try to please or satisfy God through the abilities or performances or capacities of the flesh. What I am describing is exactly the opposite. Very often, when Christians begin to talk about the necessity of denying self, or taking up the cross, or walking circumspectly, or fleeing from youthful lusts, many in the church are quick to call this a religion of “works”, or “legalism”. “Are you trying to earn your salvation?” “Do you think you can help God out?” But hopefully you can see that this is a great mistake, not only because to assert such a thing is to contradict hundreds of explicit Scriptures, but also because these scriptural admonitions have nothing to do with trying to earn divine approval, or pleasing God with our own abilities or works. Denying self, fleeing from lust, walking in the way, making no provision for the flesh, watching and praying, etc. none of these things are attempts to offer God the works of flesh. Very much to the contrary, these things have everything to do with being careful that the works of our hands, our own wills, desires, and ways don’t hinder, obstruct or resist the work that God is  desiring to do in us by the Spirit He has given us. As we said before, you cannot go east and west at the same time. It is not legalism to stop walking east in order that the Lord can bring you west. It is not works religion to stop feeding or making provision for the flesh, so that your heart can feed on the true bread that comes down from above.