Chapter I: Part 1

VICTORIOUS LIFE STUDIES

ROBERT C. McQUILKIN
Secretary
Victorious Life Testimony

Foreword by
CHARLES G. TRUMBULL
Editor of The Sunday School Times

REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION

CHRISTIAN LIFE LITERATURE FUND
Headquarters for Victorious Life Literature
Room 600 Perry Building
16th and Chestnut Streets Philadelphia

+――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――+ | | | The publishers would esteem it a privilege to be informed | | of blessing definitely received by any reader as a result | | of the perusal of this book. | | | | OLIVER RICHARD HEINZE, | | Director. | | | +――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――+

Copyright, 1918, by

Christian Life Literature Fund

FOREWORD

Did you ever go with a very dear friend into some foreign land,――say one of the islands of the sea, like Madeira; and there you and your friend vie with each other in making new discoveries of things beautiful and fresh to both of you: new flowers, fruits, birds, vistas in valleys or mountains? If so, you know something of what it means to explore, with a friend, in the land of Victory in Christ.

It was the new and undiscovered country of the Victorious Life that brought us together, Bob McQuilkin and me. (New and undiscovered to us, that is, but as old as the Day of Pentecost.) We should never have been friends but for Him; we entered, not far apart, the “foreign land” of undreamed riches and delights; and ever since then we have been joyously telling each other of our discoveries, comparing notes, sharing our finds, and together thanking Him who alone is the Promised Land, the Life, and the Victory.

God has greatly blessed me through the discoveries of my friend, as our common Guide, the Holy Spirit, has led him on and on into always new and clearer visions of what belongs, in Christ, to every Christian. I am glad that he is now sharing his findings and his convictions with many, through these studies in the Victorious Life.

As one reads this book, let it be remembered that the Victorious Life is not optional for the Christian who wants God’s whole will. It is a simple duty for every Christian to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5: 18); and being filled with the Spirit means having Victory and all that goes with this.

We think of the New Testament, and rightly, as being God’s revelation concerning how men may be saved from the wages of sin. They deserved death penalty, or hell. This is true, but have we realized, as a clear-sighted Bible teacher has pointed out, that a much greater part of the New Testament is devoted to telling Christians how to live after they are saved than how to be saved? Have we asked ourselves why this is so? Have we realized what a sad commentary on the Gospel is the man who claims that Christ has saved him completely from the penalty of his sins, yet in whose life is plainly seen, and habitually, the unbroken power of sin?

This book tells how to be as free from the power of sin as from its penalty. It gives God’s own message on _present_ salvation: salvation from sin now and here.

What the Victorious Life is; how to make it one’s own in practical experience; how it may be not only entered into, but maintained; how it differs in life-and-death ways from false substitutes for Victory,――these and other questions that are perplexing many a burdened and seeking Christian are discussed here and answered out of God’s word.

Closest fellowship with Mr. McQuilkin for five years, when we were together daily in editorial work, enables me to know that he has come to his present convictions after exhaustive Bible study, frequent conference with mature and trusted Bible students, and wide reading in the best works, new and old, in this field; but above all, after his rich personal experience, through surrender and faith, of Christ’s freely offered power and grace to meet all needs in the believer’s life. With thanksgiving to the Captain of our Salvation, who never asks us to win victories for Him, but Who has already won all our victories for us, This book is prayerfully commended in His Name.

CHARLES GALLAUDET TRUMBULL.

CONTENTS

A Word of Explanation vii
Preface to Second Edition ix
I. What Is the Victorious Life? 1
II. Out of Bondage Into Liberty 13
III. God’s New Spelling for “Obey” 22
IV. When Temptation Strikes in the Victorious Life 31
V. Conquest of Temptation in the Victorious Life 38
VI. How Jesus Lived the Victorious Life 47
VII. Serving With the “Mind of Christ” 55
VIII. The Second Coming and the Victorious Life 63
IX. Christian Science and the Victorious Life 72
X. Is the Victorious Life a Second Blessing? 82
XI. Continuing and Growing in Victory 94
XII. Can Man Be Free From Sin? 102
XIII. The Holy Spirit in the Victorious Life 119

A WORD OF EXPLANATION

BY THE AUTHOR

Most of these “studies” have been published, or are yet to be published, as editorials or articles in _The Sunday School Times_. There has been added an introductory article written particularly for those who may have little acquaintance with the meaning of the Victorious Life.

Each chapter has been prepared as an article complete in itself, but there are three pairs of articles which form closely connected studies. The chapters entitled, “Out of Bondage Into Liberty,” and “God’s New Spelling for ‘Obey’” form one study on the relation of law and grace in the life of the Christian. The two chapters on temptation form one study. The chapter on “How Jesus Lived the Victorious Life” and the one which follows on “Serving with the Mind of Christ” form a connected study on the practical meaning for us of our Lord’s humanity.

Whenever use has been made of the writings or messages of others I have endeavored to give full credit, but there should be added here a personal word of special acknowledgment. My own entrance into a new experience in Christ seven years ago came through the message of Charles G. Trumbull, who himself just a year before had found Christ in the new way that transformed his own life and with it the message of _The Sunday School Times_. Following my new experience and this new friendship there was the rare privilege of five years’ fellowship with Mr. Trumbull as Associate Editor of _The Sunday School Times_, a work that was surrendered at the call of the Lord to go into foreign missionary service. This being the foundation of these studies on the Victorious Life, it may well be that in addition to the sentences in quotation marks used with or without Mr. Trumbull’s name, there are statements and ways of putting things that have come directly or indirectly from this association. This applies particularly to the first article; the others embody more definitely suggested applications that have not been touched upon in other articles or editorials in _The Sunday School Times_. Those familiar with “The Life That Wins,” the leaflet that tells Mr. Trumbull’s personal experience, will recall the threefold division of the needs in the Christian life,――“fellowship, freedom from sin, fruit bearing,”――which is the division used in the first chapter of these studies.

Many have been eagerly awaiting Mr. Trumbull’s own book on the Victorious Life, which will deal with the subject in a comprehensive and connected way. It is hoped that this booklet may prove a helpful supplement to the later work.

Special acknowledgment should be made also to another beloved teacher, Professor Melvin Grove Kyle, for his illuminating suggestions on temptation. While this study of temptation and the outline were begun before taking theological work under Dr. Kyle, its development has been strongly influenced by the rich suggestions that are quoted from Professor Kyle.

The little book goes out with the prayer that whatever errors of statement or of judgment may be discovered, these errors may not bulk so large in the mind of the reader as to shut him out from the glorious blessing of victory in Christ, or if he has learned that secret to keep him from further riches of Grace the Word may have for him. As you read through these chapters will you pray through them also? If you receive a blessing, will you pray that God may use it with other readers, and that He alone may be glorified who is our Victory.

_July 20, 1918._

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

BY THE AUTHOR.

This revised and enlarged edition of Victorious Life Studies should not go forth without grateful acknowledgment for an abundant answer to the prayer that whatever errors of statement or of judgment might be found they should not hinder the blessing that God intended from these little “studies.” There is not alone thanksgiving to the Lord of answered prayer, but to those who shared in the prayer for blessing, and it is hoped that the increasing circle of those who are finding new riches of grace in our sufficient Saviour may continue to ask God’s guidance and blessing upon all attempts to put into print the message of victory in Christ.

Changes have been made here and there which affect the use of certain theological expressions which were not accurately used, and which would serve to confuse the truth. While none of these corrections, so far as I know, changes the vital truth that was intended to be expressed, the further study of terms used in Scripture, and terms used theologically that are not in the Scriptures, leads to a conviction that it is helpful to avoid the use of any term the meaning of which is not clear to the one who uses it.

While these studies were not intended as a comprehensive treatment of the subject, it was thought well to take advantage of the call for a second edition by adding two studies, one to consider the relation of the work of the Holy Spirit to the life of victory in Christ, the other to ask what the Scriptures mean by freedom from sin.

After outlining these studies in preparation for this new edition, it was my privilege to be associated in Victorious Life Conferences throughout the country with Dr. A. J. Ramsey, who is now giving his whole time to the work of the Victorious Life Testimony. So far as may be possible in such a word as this I wish to acknowledge the great debt of gratitude I owe to Dr. Ramsey, whose masterly expositions of Romans and First John, and other Scriptures dealing with the sin question, have served to confirm and clarify the glorious truth of God’s plan of victory over sin which a direct study of his Word will disclose to every earnest seeker. With a first-hand knowledge of classical and New Testament Greek which ranks with the leading teachers of that language, with an intimate knowledge of the ramifications of all the theological systems as well as the false “faiths,” Dr. Ramsey for eighteen years has been studying the Scriptures against the back-ground of an experience of the fulness of the Holy Spirit which transformed his own life and ministry. The result is that from all over the land have come insistent calls that he should put into print some of the results of this study which has given a new Bible to scores of ministers and other Christian workers where the message has been spoken.

* * * * *

Accordingly, Dr. Ramsey is hoping soon to prepare leaflets that will discuss such questions as “What is Sin?” “The Body of Sin: Who has It?” “The Old Man: Who is He?” “The Law of Sin: Who Obeys It?” “The Carnal Mind: What Is It?” “Is Romans Seven Christian?” “Is First John One Eight for Christians?” Others will deal with the conflict of “flesh and Spirit,” and the question whether a Christian has two natures, and it is planned later to issue a brief exposition of Romans. The studies in this little volume necessarily deal with some of these questions but as far as possible I have sought to avoid encroaching upon the distinctive contribution that Dr. Ramsey will bring in the careful exegesis of these Scriptures, and the scientific handling of the psychology and ethics that are involved as well as the theology.

To Dr. Ramsey I am indebted for a number of the changes in phraseology, but most of all for the glad confirmation that the truths so self evident in the Scriptures, but so obscured in the writings of men, do rest upon an irrefutable theology, an exegesis of Scripture that cannot be gainsaid. It is this that has given courage to speak plainly on some vital points that need clearing up. And it is a matter for encouragement to every humble student of the Word that without the equipment of a specially gifted mind and a scientific training, it is possible to arrive at both the understanding and experience of the simple plan of salvation from sin.

Shall we also remember as these pages are read that while the Holy Spirit does use human teachers to help us to know His truth, it is our responsibility to make the truth our own by seeing it in the Word for ourselves. Let us have nothing in our experience or our understanding of salvation merely as a result of what any man has said or written regarding the Word of God: let us have a glad original experience of Christ through searching for ourselves whether these things are so.

_June 19, 1920._

VICTORIOUS LIFE STUDIES

WHAT IS THE VICTORIOUS LIFE?

Are you enjoying the Victorious Life?

The Victorious Life is a life of victory over sin. Do you have it?

The Victorious Life is a life of constant fellowship with God. Do you have it?

The Victorious Life is a life of fruit-bearing. Do you have it?

Do you have the peace of God that passeth all understanding? Do you have freedom from worry and discouragement so that you are “anxious in nothing”? Do you have the joy of the Lord, which is independent of feeling, and independent of circumstances? Are you able _in all things_ to give thanks?

Have you, shed abroad in your heart, the love that suffers long and is kind, that envies not, that vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, _is not provoked_?

Do you enjoy in actual experience the fruit of the Spirit, in its nine-fold variety: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control? (Gal. 5: 22, 23).

Is prayer a precious reality to you, so that you can come to a living, present Lord to talk over every question that affects your life? Do you know what it is to ask and receive, to abide in him and have his word abide in you so that whatsoever you ask you receive? Do your prayers change things?

Is the Bible to you sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, more to be desired than gold? Do you go each day to the Word and get a direct personal message from the Master to your own soul, to meet the very need of that day?

If this picture of the Spirit-filled Life, as it is given in the Word of God, does not describe the experience you are having, then you do not have the Victorious Life. There is something that the Lord Jesus offers that _you do not have_. You may have some of these things at times, you may have glorious fruit-bearing, you may know the Lord in a vital and real way, but if there is not _complete victory_ over sin,――which includes such things as worry, discouragement, lack of love, irritation, pride, jealousy, impatience, covetousness, worldliness, lust,――then you do not have the Victorious Life, and there is an experience in Christ awaiting you which will transform life.

Your lack in these things does not mean, necessarily, that you are not a Christian, a born-again child of God, saved by the blood of Christ: it does mean that you are not using in experience what the Lord Jesus provided for you by his death and resurrection.

The First Step Toward Victory

Do you believe there is something in the Christian life that you have not found, or that you do not possess? And do you want that experience? If you can say yes to these questions, then give thanks to God that he has led you by his Grace to take the first step toward Victory.

The first step toward the Victorious Life is for a Christian to recognize the need, to realize that there is an experience that he does not possess. As in the case of an unconverted man who can never understand nor receive the Gospel message till he comes to the place of seeing himself a sinner, so a satisfied and defeated Christian is in no place to receive the Victorious Life message. The defeated man described in the seventh chapter of Romans cries out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” The reason some Christians have never tasted the victory of the eighth chapter of Romans is because they have never known anything of the struggle that is described in the seventh chapter of Romans.

A College Student’s “Problem”

A young college student came to a speaker on the Victorious Life for an interview, but started in by saying that he had no “problems” in his Christian life.

“Do you have complete victory over sin?”

“Well, it depends on what you mean by sin.”

“Do you ever have angry thoughts and feelings in your heart toward others?”

“Do you mean get ‘peeved’ at people? Sure I do.”

“Do you ever worry about things?”

“Worry about things! I should say I do. Everybody does.”

“Do you ever have impure thoughts and desires in your heart?”

“Yes, I do.”

“These things are sins, aren’t they?”

“Yes, I suppose they are.”

“These are the things that put the Lord Jesus on the Cross. You have these things in your life, you do not have victory over them and other like sins, and yet you tell me you have no ‘problem’ in your Christian life.”

This young college student was led by the Spirit to see the inner meaning of sin and to confess that he did indeed need something in his Christian life that he did not have.

The sin problem is the problem of all problems. If the sin problem in your life is settled in God’s way, you will have the secret of solving all other problems in God’s way. Fellowship with God, peace, joy, freedom from anxiety, power for service, the right enjoyment and use of Bible study and prayer, all of these things and every gift of grace will be open to you when you get the sin question settled. At Victorious Life conferences, Christians come to the leaders and say that they are not troubled in the matter of getting victory over sin, but that they do not get results in their Christian service and they want the Holy Spirit for power in service. In every such case it is found that the real difficulty is the sin question: there is not complete, Spirit-given victory over inward sin. When that is settled the power in service and the results follow.

When God came to choose a name for his Son, some one has pointed out, he went to the heart of the subject and called his name “Jesus,” because it is he that shall save his people from their sins. It is going to the heart of the Christian’s need, then, first to emphasize victory over sin as the road to all other blessings of the Abundant Life.

What is God’s way of securing this Victory?

There are two ways of getting money, or any other thing of value――either working for it, or receiving it as a gift.

Two Ways to Seek Victory

There are two ways of seeking after salvation――working for it or receiving it as a gift. But there are not two ways of _obtaining_ salvation or eternal life. For when a sinner works, he works sin; and the _wages_ of sin is death. Life is never earned. Death is. Life must be given. So the free gift of God, the only author of life, is eternal life. We are saved by Grace, not by works, for the least particle of “works” would make Grace void.

There are two ways of seeking after the Victorious Life, present freedom from the law of sin――working for it, striving and struggling after it, or receiving it as a free gift, without effort. There are not two ways of _obtaining_ Victory. For when a saved sinner struggles with inward desires toward evil he is under the law――using his own efforts――and not under grace, and the struggle at some time or other always ends in defeat.

The Victorious Life is a free gift from God. It cannot be earned. It therefore must be accepted on the same terms as salvation from the penalty of sin. It must be received as a gift. To enjoy a gift one has but to take it, and thank the giver.

“Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor. 12:9).

To believe these words of God is to enjoy the gift of victory.

“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom. 8:2).

To believe this word is to enjoy present freedom from the law of sin. “Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.... If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:34, 35).

“If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Gal. 5:18), that is, we are under Grace. And Grace means, Jesus Christ is doing it all for us, winning the victory for us by his indwelling power.

The Much More Salvation

These Scriptures show clearly that God’s way of victory over present sin is by the power of the Holy Spirit. That new law, the law of the Spirit, makes us free from the law of sin. “If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10). This is the “much more salvation,” present salvation by his indwelling life. Reconciled saints need to be “saved,” and the Victorious Life is nothing other than salvation by free grace, in present action, applied to each temptation and problem.

God’s plan of salvation from the present power of sin, therefore, is exactly the same plan as he has revealed for salvation from the death penalty of sin. Both are by free grace without effort on your part. Both are to be received and enjoyed by faith. After the remarkable passage in the fifth chapter of Galatians, which gives the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit, there is this statement: “If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk” (Gal. 5:25). That is, since we have been born again by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, by that same supernatural Spirit, without effort on our part, let us also live our daily lives, winning victory over sin by just letting the fruit of the Spirit be produced, letting the rivers of living waters flow out (John 7:38).

It follows from this that every Christian really has received the gift of Victory from God, for it is just the indwelling Christ through the power of the Spirit. But how few, how very few Christians are enjoying the remarkable results of that gift, the freedom from the law of sin, the fruit of the Spirit. Why is this? A generation ago there were very many earnest Christians who thought it presumptuous to be sure of their salvation. They may have been saved and been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, but they were not, and some Christians to-day are not, _enjoying assurance of salvation_. Even so defeated Christians, who walk now and then after the flesh and fall into sin, are not enjoying the freedom that Christ purchased for them. They are not living up to their privileges in the Lord. The word of freedom has not been benefiting them, because it has not been united by faith with them that heard. “For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard” (Heb. 4:2).

The Two Simple Conditions

The simplicity of entering into this New Life has been a stumbling block to many. For there are but two conditions for victory, and every Christian has been given grace to meet these two conditions. The first is surrender. For that resurrection life of Jesus can only operate when our self effort ceases. “Yield yourselves unto God” (Rom. 6:13). Or as Weymouth translates it: “Surrender your very selves unto God.” And this was spoken to Christians. This surrender of the Christian to God is positive, not negative. It is not as a surrender of things, nor of an evil self life, but a yielding of self with all its powers to God, as alive from the dead. With this positive surrender everything contrary to God’s will goes out of the life.

Surrender a Definite Matter

Failure frequently comes in the life of Victory because there has not been a complete surrender. Something has been held back. Or we have been too superficial in our understanding of what crucifixion of the old self life means. Now our Lord is lovingly ready to meet us when we come eager for full salvation and willing to make full surrender to him. He will show us if we ask him, _and wait for his answer_, whether there is anything that is not wholly surrendered to him. Some Christians say this matter of surrender is very vague, and they cannot tell whether they have really surrendered completely. As a matter of fact, the Holy Spirit is always very definite when we deal with him earnestly. One woman who said the surrender matter was entirely too vague for her to know whether she had surrendered, after some questioning remarked: “Well, of course, I would not be willing to have my two sons go to Africa as missionaries.” The matter of surrender was very definite for her and until this Christian mother lays her two boys on the altar for Christ she will not know complete victory.

Young people sometimes stumble over surrendering such things as worldly amusements, the theatre, dramatic moving pictures, dancing, card-playing, smoking. They argue that they do not regard these things as sins, though others may believe them to be. But surely if we are facing the question of getting such a great Gift as Christ as our Victory and very Life, these things are small matters to yield. But if they are not sins, are they “weights” in the Christian race? “Let us ... lay aside _every weight_, and the sin which doth so easily beset us” (Heb. 12:1).

When A Christian Robs Christ

But, it may be objected, how can a Christian surrender? Does he not already belong to Christ? Ah, that is the sad tragedy of it. Will a man rob God? Yes, the Church of Christ is largely robbing him to-day of the only offering he cares for――ourselves as living sacrifices. We are indeed bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ, we are not our own, we belong to him. Have _you_ acknowledged this ownership in every detail, not with your lips alone, but with your life, in its every action? That is the first requirement for Victory. And Victory will never be enjoyed until the surrender question is settled. An earnest young Christian woman was in defeat and distress because there was something she would not yield. She acknowledged it was pride, but she could not give it up.

“Whom do you belong to?” she was asked.

“Christ.”

“What price did he pay for you?”

“His own life.”

“But you are saying to him there is something you are holding back. What are you doing?”

“I suppose I am crucifying him afresh,” she answered, the tears coming.

“Yes, you are robbing him.”

But the struggle went on and she would not yield.

“Will you kneel down and just tell the Lord that you are robbing him, and that you intend to keep on robbing him?”

She shrank from such a thought, and she kneeled down and told her Lord that she _would_ yield that one thing she was holding back, and that there was nothing that she was not willing to do that he wanted.

She arose with a radiant face, and as the days went on it developed that God did not want her to do the thing she was shrinking back from doing. A Christian may be kept out of victory because he says he would not be willing to go to the mission field, or send his sons to the mission field. God _may not want him to go_, but he can never have Victory as long as there is an unwillingness to do what God _may_ want him to do. For this is doubting God and his love.

More Needed Than Surrender

But there are multitudes of Christians who are truly surrendered, holding nothing back, who do not have Victory. For the surrendered life is not necessarily the Victorious Life. Surrender is _our_ part. The supernatural work of Victory is _God’s_ part. _God is doing his part as soon as we yield ourselves_, and we get the benefit of it when we believe that fact. This is Victory by faith. “Faith does nothing. Faith believes that God is doing it all.” Faith is just believing the word of God. Those marvelous promises, or rather “facts” of God’s Grace which have been quoted above can only be received by the Christian who is holding nothing back from God. Then all the rest is God’s work.

Is he faithful? We have surrendered. Is our part then to believe that God will give us Victory? _No, that is not faith._ “Victory’s final secret,” as Mr. Trumbull has put it, is to believe that Christ _is_ doing his part, that his Grace _is_ sufficient, that we _are_ free from the law of sin, that we _are_ under Grace and not under law and that therefore sin _is not having dominion_ over us, that he _is_ meeting all our needs, but we _are_ walking in the Spirit. This is “letting God.”

Will you not “let go, and let God?” Now?

If you do, you can say with Paul, not only as a truth of your position in Christ, but as the blessed truth of your experience: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20).

What It Is Not

The Victorious Life is not a life free from temptation, but a life of victory over temptation. First Corinthians 10:13, with its “there is no temptation” is an absolute guarantee from God that victory over all temptations is possible; for he himself provides the way of escape. Jesus,――in his resurrection Life,――is the Way.

The Victorious Life is not a life free from the possibility of falling into sin. It is always possible at any moment to sin, and as soon as our eyes get off Jesus faith slips, self is in control, and the result is sin.

The Victorious Life is not dependent on circumstances. Nothing is too hard for God, not even your hard circumstances. And let us always remember that the Victorious Life is “_the Life that is Christ_.” He is as able under one circumstance as under another.

The Victorious Life is not an attainment by growth. True growth in Grace really begins when we take the Grace of the Lord for complete victory over sin. Growth in Grace does not mean gradually getting rid of our sins, but it does mean growing from one degree of glory to another degree of glory as we behold the Lord and are changed into his image (2 Cor. 3:18).

The Victorious Life gives no cause for boasting of spiritual attainment. Grace excludes boasting. It gives us no holiness of our own. The holiness and the victory are His, and the most mature saint in the walk of faith needs the same secret of Victory as the young Christian just entering into the Life. His strength is ever made perfect in weakness. My weakness is never made stronger, though as I learn more of the Bible teaching of what faith is I may get more and more established in acting by faith.

Continuing in Victory

We continue in the Life of Victory as we entered it, by continuing the attitude of surrender and faith, moment by moment. It is the principle of “contact”; as long as the trolley keeps on the wire the electric power is supplied to run the car; as we keep looking unto Jesus there is Victory. If a slip of faith comes, if the trolley gets off the wire, and sin enters (which is always possible but never necessary), do not stop to argue with Satan about the sin or listen to his suggestion that you never had Victory: confess, receive instant forgiveness (1 John 1:9), look again in faith just as when you entered into the blessed “rest of faith.”

Does this message leave you with joy and gladness in your heart, because you know that this life is yours? Have you taken the Gift? Or are you like the young Christian who told an older woman that she had surrendered and believed _a thousand times_, and she was in hopeless darkness about it all.

“Well,” this older Christian said, “just stop doing that, or trying to do anything, and trust him to do it all.”

“I have done that a hundred times,” was the discouraged answer.

She had no will power to do anything, and she was hungry for Victory.

“If you can do nothing else, just lift up your heart to Christ.”

“I can’t. My heart is too heavy to lift up.”

It Is as Simple as This

“Well, one thing you can do, for it is just a physical act. You can lift up your eyes. Will you do that?”

The young woman promised that she would do that, and on the way home she kept her eyes directed upward as unto him. The next day she gave her testimony with a radiant face, rejoicing in the Lord: “I lifted up my eyes, and my heart went up with them.”

The Victorious Life is just as gloriously simple as that――just looking up――unto Jesus――and KEEP ON LOOKING.

OUT OF BONDAGE INTO LIBERTY

“They do not care a snap of their fingers whether Abraham was justified by faith or works,” writes a leading American preacher in a recent article that seeks to interpret the heart-cry of men to-day for a prophet who can give them “a spiritual interpretation of the world-rending and home-smashing events that are taking place.”

Yet that very same question which was the all-important thing for Abraham, to-day, nearly four thousand years later, is still the question that goes to the root of the world’s spiritual problem.

There is nothing more important for the Christian to understand than the distinction between law and grace. For to understand that is to have in one’s heart the Gospel message. It is not too much to say that the chief cause of powerlessness in the Christian church to-day, a powerlessness that is made the more acutely evident by the world’s sore travail, is that so many thousands of Christians are still living under law.

They have not found the emancipation of grace.

They do not walk at liberty, which was purchased for us by Christ.

They do not stand fast in the freedom wherewith Christ has set us free.

They are not “free indeed” with the freedom which the Son of God won for us.

This is not an academic question. It is not a discussion of points of law, nor the making of fine distinctions in the deeper spiritual mysteries. _It is a question of sin._

When our Lord was telling the Jews that if they believed him and followed him they would know the truth, and the truth would set them free, they threw back their shoulders in their pride of ancestry and boasted that they were Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man. The Son of God did not stop to discuss questions of race, or of political liberty, but went to the heart of the matter with one of his tremendous verilies: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin” (John 8:34).

Christians Who Are Bondslaves

That Word of the King of kings is the word that needs to be thundered to-day, or, what is more effective, whispered to-day into the souls of men. There is no bondslavery comparable to this. A man may be on the side of righteousness so far as the conflict of nations is concerned to-day, but what avails that for the solving of his individual problem if he is the bondservant of sin?

If, then, the question of law and grace is a question of sin, it is the most vital matter that can concern men to-day. Always alongside of sin is another word beginning with S――“Salvation,”――that is, this word is always alongside of sin in _this age of Grace_. When our Lord told the Jews of this bondslavery, he did not leave them there, but added that wondrous word: “If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

There is needed to-day a great challenge to be thrown at an unbelieving world, a testimony that cannot be answered,――_Christians walking at liberty_, men and women living in the midst of these awful days of stress with the “freedom indeed” which belongs only to sons of God. But instead of that an unbelieving world is constantly face to face with the puzzling spectacle of professing Christians who are bondservants of sin, who do not know the meaning of liberty.

For let us remember the word of the Master, and not nullify it with theological explanations to make it fit into the experiences of Christians: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.” And Christians are bondservants of sin because they are living under law and not under grace. They are not using, not enjoying, the freedom that Jesus Christ purchased for us.

Have We Nothing to Do with Law?

So fundamental is the correct understanding of the Christian’s relation to the law, that if Satan is not able to beguile Christians into staying in bondage under the law he will seek to drive them into an opposite error that is just as deadly to true liberty. This is the notion that a Christian has nothing to do with the law, and is under no obligation to have his life conform to it. Young Christians who have seen something of the wonder of their deliverance from the law have jumped to the conclusion that the Old Testament books that deal with the dispensation of law have such an indirect bearing upon their lives that they can neglect them. Portions of the New Testament are also divided in this fashion from the rest of the Word, and even Christians with a deep spiritual vision have argued that the Sermon on the Mount had little in it for them because it was on legal ground, and we are under grace. Their teachers may not have intended this application of their instruction about freedom from the law, but it illustrates the danger, and shows the need of clear light from the Word to avoid the pitfalls on each side.

So the Word of God urges on the one hand, “For freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5:1), and cautions on the other, “For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God” (1 Peter 2:16).

And Paul puts the two messages together in Galatians 5:13 and 14: “For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Law in the New Testament

But in what sense are we freed from the law, if we are still to keep the law? The New Testament takes hold of the law of God as revealed in the Old, and makes it infinitely higher in its requirements.

Some men say that their Gospel is the Sermon on the Mount.

It is the most hopeless Gospel a sinner ever struggled with.

For in this sermon our Lord pours the spiritual meanings into the law of God. It may have been possible for a man to abstain from the outward act of murder, but our Lord takes that command and shows that the inward fact of murder is in a man’s heart if he is angry with his brother. So does the Master lift the command against impurity into a place where the strong moral man, who does not have the secret of victory, is convicted of impurity.

Not only is there this spiritual interpretation of the law, which makes it the more impossible to keep it, but there is the new commandment the Lord gave his disciples, to love one another _as he loved them_. And as though this were not enough, the New Testament epistles, after the death and resurrection, when the dispensation of law was fully over, show us that to break the law of God at one point makes us guilty of all: “Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well: but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law” (James 2:8-11).

This startling passage says that if Christians have respect of persons――and has not the Spirit here put his finger upon one of the most pathetic and abominable sins of Christian churches of our day?――these Christians are convicted as transgressors of the law, and are guilty of all. Then the Apostle goes on to speak of the sins of murder and adultery as samples of the kind of thing that a Christian is guilty of when he shows respect of persons,――the awful sin of unlove.

Law Never Abrogated

This leads us into the truth that the law of God is pure and holy and spiritual, and has never been abrogated. The New Covenant does not take away the law: it provides a way of fulfilling the law. There are many senses in which the word “law” is used in the Scriptures, but we are looking now at the righteous law of God which must be fulfilled, and the breaking of which is sin, for sin is lawlessness, or the breaking of the law. James tells us that to stumble in one point is to break the whole law, for the law is a unity.

The law is a unity because it is an expression of the character of God, and God is one.

To break it in one point is to sin against God. It is a true revelation of the Scriptures that “God is law,” though these words do not occur. The words “God is love” do occur, and love is the fulfilling of the law.

When God gave the perfect law to men God knew that men could not keep it apart from the secret of Grace. _But men did not know it._ And God cannot do anything for a man by grace until man learns that he is a transgressor of the law of God, and that it is _impossible for him to keep it_. Israel said, “All that Jehovah hath spoken we will do.” They indeed needed a tutor unto Christ.

The law, then, was added to show man what sin is, to make sin exceeding sinful, to prove to man that he is a sinner. This work the law did all through the old dispensation. But this work the law must continue to do for every individual before he can enter into the meaning of grace.

That Seventh of Romans Struggle

That is what the struggle of the seventh chapter of Romans means. That is a struggle under law, the picture of a man who has been brought under condemnation by the law. The law is a great mirror let down from heaven in which a man may see himself as he is. That is why the law brings condemnation and death. It is a curse,――not because the law is not holy, but because it convicts the man of his unholiness. Law does this in the New Testament as well as the Old, and with infinitely more searching terribleness because of the high spiritual interpretation of the inner meaning of the outward commands. The law of God has done its work in a Christian when he has seen that it is impossible for him to be good according to God’s standard.

Not all have seen this. Dr. Scofield tells of a gentleman who came to him at the close of a talk on how a Christian might get out of the struggle of the seventh chapter of Romans into the victory of the eighth chapter, and asked him this: “Doctor, what was the trouble with Paul anyway? Why did he find it so hard to be good? I don’t find it very hard to be good.”

“What do you mean by being good?” the preacher asked.

“What every one means――living a clean life, being honest, paying your debts, treating people right, and if your neighbor gets in trouble put your hand in your pocket and help him out.”

“Oh,” Dr. Scofield responded, “Paul did those things all his life. Any _gentleman_ would do those things. Paul was not talking of that when he said it was a struggle to be good.”

“Well, what did he mean?” the business man asked, somewhat taken aback.

“Not Built That Way!”

“Did you ever try to be meek?” was the preacher’s next question.

“What’s that?”

“Did you ever try to be meek?”

“No, sir! I don’t admire a meek man.”

“Don’t you? Well, God does. His Son was meek and lowly. But now suppose you started off some morning and determined to be meek all that day, to love everybody, no matter what mean things another man might say. Would you find it easy?”

“I couldn’t do it. That’s not in my line. I’m not built that way.”

Just so, we are not built that way. We need to be built over. A new life needs to come in. And when the law has brought us to that point, and we cry out with Paul, “Wretched man that I am!” then the law has done its proper work. The tragic thing is that most Christians stop right there in their reading of the seventh chapter of Romans. They do not go on to the glorious word of deliverance. There is a way out. Paul has been in bondage under the law of sin. But a new law enters, and he exclaims, “The law of the Spirit ... made me free from the law of sin and of death.” What is the new power of that law of the Spirit? “_Life in Christ Jesus._” What happens when the law of the Spirit is working, when we are enjoying the freedom indeed wherewith Christ hath set us free? _The requirement of the law is fulfilled in us._ This law of the Spirit, of the new Life in Christ Jesus, hath set us free from the law of sin and death, in order that we might keep the law of God. And it is kept in us just as long as we walk in the Spirit. God’s plan is that we should walk in the Spirit all the time; that is “abiding in Christ.” The struggle of the seventh of Romans is a struggle _under the law_, it is human effort apart from grace. It is not given as the normal Christian experience, but a parenthesis between two passages of glorious liberty, placed there to show what bearing the keeping of the law has upon the Christian’s experience. The normal Christian experience is freedom from the dominion of sin.

What Grace Says

“Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law but under grace.” The secret of victory, therefore, is to keep under grace, which is walking in the Spirit. How is this to be done? All Christians who have real assurance of salvation see clearly that we are saved by grace. Law has condemned them. Law says “Do,” and we cannot do.

Grace says, “Jesus Christ has done it for me.”

“How much in the matter of my salvation has he done?”

“All of it.”

“How much is there left for me to do?”

_Nothing._ “Faith does nothing”; faith believes that Jesus has done it all.

Now this is exactly the case with Christian living, and the keeping of the law of God. Whenever a Christian sins, sin is having dominion over him, and that means that he is living under law where he does not belong, and needs to get under grace. Here, just as in salvation from the penalty of sin, grace means that Jesus Christ is doing it all. What is left for me then in the matter of winning victory over sin? _Nothing._ Faith believes that Jesus is doing it all. That is grace, and nothing else is. For if my effort enters, it is not of grace, but partly by the work of the law. That is making void the grace of God, “for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought” (Gal. 2:21).

Christian liberty is changing the bondslavery of sin for the bondslavery of Christ; it is freedom from the law in order that the law may be kept in us by Another; it is changing the law that “made nothing perfect” for “the perfect law, the law of liberty.” “So speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty” (James 2:12).

GOD’S NEW SPELLING FOR “OBEY”

“Trust and obey” is frequently given as the key to living the Victorious Life. “Surrender and obedience,” another suggests as the things necessary for continuance in victory. Instant obedience to every word of God, another says, is absolutely necessary if one would be in victory. Another teacher points out that the New Testament reduces all God’s commandments to two,――believe in Jesus and love one another,――and our duty is thus simplified: we are to obey these two commandments and victory is ours.

But to obey these commandments is exactly what I cannot do. If I obey these two commandments, the whole law of God is fulfilled in me. It is because I have failed to fulfil this perfect law of God, that I cry out with Paul, “Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” The answer to that question gives me the secret of the Victorious Life, the Life that results in obedience. Of what avail is it to tell me that the secret of living the Victorious Life is to obey God, when the very reason I am hungry after the Life is because it _results_ in obedience. That Life does what I have failed to do――obey God.

So long as we make obedience the cause or producer of victory, so long are we under the law. We are living under the Old Covenant. The law says, “He that doeth them [God’s statutes] shall live in them”; that is, it is the law-keeper’s obedience which brings life and victory.

But, it will be answered, when Christians are urged to obey it is not intended that they should do this in their own strength. We must constantly seek divine help to obey. There is the human side and the divine side. On our part we are to strive with all our willpower against sin, and God’s part is to help us in the struggle.

Making Victory Impossible

There is one trouble with this program of human effort co-operating with divine power. _It always leads to defeat_, bringing the struggling man under the dominion of sin. It produces the man pictured in the seventh chapter of Romans. It is the program followed by nearly all Christians.

And that is why nearly all Christians are living in defeat practically all of the time.