Chapter II: Part 2

It is not that defeats come now and again in the face of difficult temptations; the distressing thing in the experience of most earnest Christians is the consciousness that complete victory is _never_ enjoyed; the occasional bad falls are but indications of a chronic condition of defeat.

The Two Covenants

The reason for this life of defeat is that Christians mingle law and grace, and this makes complete victory an impossibility. When we are in defeat it is because we are under the Old Covenant, which can make nothing perfect. It may be that we are clear intellectually on the distinction between law and grace, but it is the mingling of them in daily experience that results in defeat before sin. The secret of victory, then, is to get entirely from under law and get wholly under grace for the needs of the present moment. What does this mean? How can it be done?

Probably no one has put more concisely and clearly the distinction between the Old Covenant and the New than has Andrew Murray in his “Two Covenants.” Under the Old Covenant, he points out, God says: “Obey me, and I will be your God.” In the New Covenant God speaks in some such words as these: “I will put my law in your heart, and ye shall obey me.” In the Old Covenant, Andrew Murray says, there were two parties, man and God. Man failed to keep his part of the agreement and the covenant was broken. In the New Covenant there is only one party. God undertakes the whole responsibility. The first is law. The second is grace. If man has any responsibility in the second, except to receive God’s provision through faith, then it is no longer of free grace.

A clear-thinking Presbyterian elder, a man of culture and trained mind, who recently saw the truth of Christ as his victory for the first time, was asked what he thought was the difference between the Old Covenant of works and the New Covenant of Grace. Several verses of Scripture had just been quoted which brought out the distinction. He was a man of few words, and he answered by holding up two fingers of his left hand, and one finger of his right hand. He had seen at once, five minutes after entering into victory, what Andrew Murray makes the theme of his helpful book on the Spirit-filled life,――that in the New Covenant it is not man co-operating with God, but God assuming the whole work, and doing it for man.

“I Could Not Live Up to It”

Another Presbyterian elder, also a clear thinker, a lawyer of ability, was recently facing the question of the need of victory in his own life. When the Scripture promises were presented to him, and he was asked whether he would take victory, his reply was a decided “No.”

“Why won’t you?”

“Because I am not sure I could live up to it.”

He still had two parties in his contract. He was still thinking under, and living under, the Old Covenant.

It sounds reasonable when a Christian says, “Of course, I am sure that _Christ_ will always be faithful to his part, but the failure will come because of _my_ weakness.” When a Christian says that, he is not in victory; he has missed the very heart of the Victorious Life. He is still under the Old Covenant. For God made the New Covenant with full knowledge of that weakness of mine. Indeed _it was just because of that weakness of mine that the New Covenant was made_. Had the weakness not been there the Old Covenant would have sufficed. The New Covenant is of no avail, and means nothing, if it is not to operate in spite of that weakness.

Man’s Part in Victory Over Sin

If God does everything in the matter of my obeying the law, what is my part? To do nothing. The human side of this New Covenant is to see that self is kept from doing anything, so that Grace may work. It is the effort of the self life, the human struggle described in Romans 7:7-24, which prevents the victory of Grace.

But surely Grace on God’s part needs something on man’s side if it is to be brought into touch with man. Yes, it needs to be told to man so that he may hear it as a message of good tidings. “Belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). The word of good tidings to law-breaking Christians is that God has put his law in our hearts so that we shall obey him.

What are we to do with the word of good tidings? Believe it. If we do not believe that the law of the Spirit hath made us free from the law of sin, our unbelief does not affect the truth of God’s word, but we ourselves lose the benefit of those good tidings. “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).

“Obey” Becomes “Believe”

The “obey” of the Old Covenant has become in the New Covenant “believe.” The responsibility for obedience has been taken entirely by Christ, and man’s part is to believe that astounding fact. Christians are still urged to obey, but always the spelling of that word is “believe.”

“Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth ... having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God.... But the word of the Lord abideth for ever. And this is the word of good tidings which was preached unto you.... For you therefore that believe is the preciousness: but for such as disbelieve, ... A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; for they stumble at the word, being disobedient.”

These scattered verses in the first and second chapters of First Peter present the new spelling of the old “obey.” Obedience to the truth is simply believing the word of good tidings, and they who stumbled at the word were disobedient because they did not believe the word of good tidings. It is a striking commentary that the King James Version uses “disobedient” in 1 Peter 2:7, where the Revised Version reads “disbelieve.”

If this change from law to Grace is simply a different putting of the matter, leaving man’s responsibility the same, then indeed there is no good tidings for the Christian in the matter of freedom from sin, and the Victorious Life teaching is a myth. If telling us to believe is just another way of asking us to obey, then are we no better off than before, and we must await our resurrection bodies in order to enjoy freedom from the law of sin against which we have been struggling. For with all our mind and heart we may want to obey, but there is that “different law in our members” preventing us from doing the things that we would. What is the new factor in Grace that changes everything? Is it something real, or something that I must produce by my own understanding, just a new _attitude_ to the law?

Is Your Name in This Will?

It is something as real as the inheritance that a millionaire father wills to his son. God gives us a will in the third chapter of Galatians, and he speaks in it of an inheritance, and in words as carefully chosen and as accurate as in a perfect human will he explains who are the heirs in that will. The promise was given to Abraham and to his seed, not “seeds” as of many; “but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). The closing verse of that will reveals the importance of that distinction the Holy Spirit makes between the singular and plural of the word seed. This distinction has puzzled scholars and some have called it an example of Paul’s juggling with words, but it need not puzzle any of the heirs whose names are in this will. “And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise.”

There is but one seed, Christ, and all that I am to get through this will, I get because I am in him. What is the inheritance promised in the will? If an earthly father knows how to will good gifts to his children, what shall be said of the heavenly Father’s gift? The will says that it is “the promise of the Spirit” and that it is through faith (Gal. 3:14). The promise includes complete freedom from the law.

But does not the law also come from God? “Is the law then against the promises of God?” is a most natural question, and it is asked in this legal document which tells us of our inheritance. The answer to that question contains one of the most significant statements in the whole Word of God on the relation of law and grace: “God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been of the law” (Gal. 3:21).

Where “High Ideals” Fall Down

There is as much difference, then, between being under law and under grace, as there is between a dead man and a live man. If a high ideal could have given life, the word tells us, if God could have provided a law which could make a dead man alive, Grace would not have been needed, for righteousness would have been by the law. The free gift of the New Covenant is a new LIFE. That is what the promise of the Spirit provides. Does this give a vivid light upon Romans 8:2, “The law of the Spirit ... made me free from the law of sin and of death?” And the power of the law of the Spirit is the resurrection life of Christ Jesus. So the complete verse reads, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.”

The passage in Romans eight goes on to show how Jesus did for us the thing we could not do, and that as a result of what he did, and is doing through the Spirit, “the requirement of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” If we are appropriating the promise of the Spirit, our inheritance through faith, _we are having fulfilled in us the law of God at this present moment_. That is what the Word of God says. That is what happens when we are under Grace and not under the law. Obedience to the law is guaranteed while we are under Grace,――walking in the Spirit. Disobedience to the law can come only when the Christian is living under law,――walking after the flesh.

But, some one asks, is not a Christian always under Grace? He is, in his _position_, and the Victorious Life is simply walking by faith in that position won by Christ. “We believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor” (Gal. 2:16, 18).

A Christian Under Law

When a Christian sins, transgresses the law, he is building up that which he has destroyed.

He is acting as though he were back under the law.

He is doing the deeds of the old man that has been crucified with Christ.

He is denying the resurrection life of Christ which is in him.

He is walking after the flesh and not after the Spirit.

He is back on the basis of working instead of resting in the finished work of Christ.

He is under the works of the law instead of the hearing of faith.

He is not standing fast in the freedom wherewith Christ has set him free.

There is but one thing to be done in order to get back at once under grace and the faith life,――confess the sin and take cleansing in the blood of Jesus. This is wholly of Grace; no Christian would be so foolish as to try to atone for his sin or to help the Lord Jesus do a complete work of cleansing.

It is exactly the same sort of folly that leads the Christian to seek to add his own effort in the business of winning victory over the next temptation that assails him. “_If we live by the Spirit_ [if we have been born again by the Spirit], _by the Spirit let us also walk_” (by the same supernatural power let us live day by day and hour by hour, letting God do it all by the Spirit) (Gal. 5:25).

God’s new spelling for “obey” is “believe.” And, as Mr. Trumbull put it to a Christian who was grieving because she did not have the faith to believe, “The faith for salvation is the faith for victory.” Faith is just believing the word of God.

A Christian Under Grace

Have you believed the good tidings of future salvation and glory? Believe the same good tidings for present salvation from sin.

If you are under grace, sin shall not have dominion; you are walking in the Spirit.

Christ is dwelling in your heart by faith.

You are freed from the law with its works.

Yet the law of God is in your heart and it is your nature to keep it.

You are a new creation.

You are walking in newness of life.

You can finish the second chapter of Galatians as Paul finishes it: “For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. I do not make void the grace of God” (Gal. 2:19-21).

WHEN TEMPTATION STRIKES

There is no state of grace that can be reached on earth which will guard a man from being tempted. The Victorious Life is a life of victory over temptation, but not a life of freedom from temptation.

Many a young Christian in the first flush of joy over new-found victory has somehow felt that this glorious new liberty was indeed freedom from temptation. For certain temptations have been taken completely out of the life. Perhaps it was the taste for tobacco, and the desire for smoking has been taken away. Or the questionable “border-line” amusements (questionable only to border-line Christians),――dancing and cards and the theater,――have completely lost their attractiveness and offer no temptation.

But suddenly, some day, temptation strikes from an unexpected quarter, and failure comes. It may be all over in a moment, but sin has entered. Perhaps it was a sudden flash of impatience, or irritation, or jealousy. Satan, close at hand, cunningly whispers, “You never had the experience of the Victorious Life.... And you never will.” Or he whispers that still more cunning word, “This higher life business is all a mistake.” And so the soul that has taken Christ as victory is often plunged into discouragement when the truth dawns that in the Victorious Life _temptations multiply_.

In this problem of temptation in the Victorious Life, as in every other conflict with our great Adversary, our safety must be found in the Word of God.

“Can a Dead Man Be Tempted?”

A common error regarding temptation in the Christian life is the belief that temptation is directed against a “sinful nature” within us. Some months ago there was discussed in Notes on Open Letters in _The Sunday School Times_ the question of an earnest seeker who had taken Christ as his victory and was puzzled by this matter of temptation. He wrote:

How should temptation affect us? Christ had no sinful self
in his temptation to contend with. Adam before the fall had
not his sinful self to contend with; but we, since the fall,
have a sinful self, even though we are in victory, if I
understand rightfully. In Romans we read that the old man is
crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead
is freed from sin. If we are dead why should evil thoughts or
temptations of any kind find in us the slightest desire of
yielding to them? What should be the effect of feeling them?
A dead man has no life, has he?

Temptation is never aimed against a dead man, nor against evil in a man. There is no meaning in “tempting evil.” There is no need for Satan to direct attacks against that which is already on his side. It is because we are alive and have power to sin that we are exhorted to reckon ourselves dead to――separated from――sin, not dead to temptation.

Temptation Hits Natural Desires

Temptation is directed against the _human_ nature, and finds its entrance through the natural desires and impulses of the body. That is all Satan had to work upon in the case of Adam and Eve, and in the case of “the last Adam,” our Lord himself. Both Adams were sinless men before temptation came,――and “the last Adam” was sinless after temptation came. But both lived in temptable bodies; and it is these human bodies, not any sin nature dwelling in us, that make temptation possible.

A lost man may have depraved and unnatural appetites, as the drink or drug habit, which drop off at regeneration. But the natural appetites remain, and through these temptation may come in many forms.

Satan has no other plan of temptation for Christians than that which he tried successfully upon the first Adam and with disastrous failure upon the last Adam. A study of these two conflicts with Satan reveals the startling fact that all our multiplied temptations come to us through three channels, and three only. If these citadels are held, victory is certain. To understand this not only simplifies the problem of temptation, but shows why certain _forms_ of temptation fall away from the Christian who takes Christ as his victory, while _temptation_ in many other forms remains.

Perhaps no one has summed up more concisely, in terms of everyday experience, these three channels of temptation, than does Professor Melvin Grove Kyle in his teaching on temptation in his seminary classes.

Our Three Desires

Dr. Kyle points out that man has three natural desires: (1) the desire to enjoy things; (2) the desire to get things; (3) the desire to do things.

These three cover the whole range of human desires. For the desire to _enjoy_ things concerns everything that has to do with a man’s body. The desire to _get_ things concerns everything that a man sees outside of himself, the things that he can obtain in one way or another for himself. The desire to _accomplish_ things includes everything that goes out from the man to affect in one way or another that outside world. Professor Kyle’s suggested definition of temptation is this: “Temptation is the incitement of a natural desire to go beyond the bound set by God.”

With this analysis before us, let us look into what happened when Satan came to our first parents. Let it be remembered that none of these three desires necessarily has to do with sin. Adam and Eve had these desires before sin entered. Our Lord Jesus had these same natural human desires.

Sin is doing something that God has told man not to do, or not doing something that God has told him to do. Eve’s failure began, under temptation, when she was willing to consider Satan’s questioning of God’s word.

Eve’s Threefold Temptation

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.” There was the threefold temptation. “She saw that the tree was good for food”; her desire to enjoy things was incited, and she faced the question of satisfying in an unlawful way that desire for enjoyment. She saw that the fruit was “a delight to the eyes”: her desire to get the attractive thing she saw was incited, and she faced the question of whether she should satisfy that desire in a way that God had forbidden. Finally she saw that the tree was “to be desired to make one wise.” Satan had told her that she and her husband would be as God if they ate the fruit. Her desire to accomplish things took the form of reaching out after equality with God.

Now turn for a moment to the analysis of sin and temptation that the Holy Spirit gives in 1 John 2:16: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Here is an inclusive statement of all that is in the world. The apostle is stating here the only three ways in which it is possible for a man to sin. Note that they are the three points at which Eve failed.

When the desire to _enjoy things_ goes beyond the bounds set by God it becomes “the lust of the flesh.” The lawful desire to _get things_, when it turns into sin, becomes “the lust of the eyes.” When the desire _to do things_ leads a man away from God, it becomes “the vainglory [or the pride] of life.”

Dr. Kyle points out in his study of temptation that Eve fell at _every_ point of her nature, and sinned in “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life.” He notes also that the lust of the eyes and the pride of life had no immediate outlet of expression for Adam and Eve, situated as they were in the midst of a world that was all theirs, and so the sin found immediate expression in some form of the lust of the flesh. Yet man had yielded and sinned at all three points.

Tempting Our Sinless Lord

Turning now from the luxurious garden to the barren wilderness, the same Tempter comes to our Lord Jesus, the last Adam, when he was hungry after his fasting of forty days and forty nights; and the Tempter came with the same three appeals. Our Lord Jesus had the natural desire to enjoy food for his body. He was hungry, and the desire was right. But the Tempter asked him to satisfy that hunger in a wrong way. Satan again begins his attack by a question. He does not hold before Christ the temptation to _become_ as God. He raises the question as to whether he is the Son of God, and suggests that this be proved by making use of the omnipotence of the Creator to satisfy his own human needs. It was far more subtle than the appeal to Eve’s desire to enjoy the fruit; but at the bottom it was an attack on the Word of God. Our Lord’s answer not only checkmates the Tempter, but states a profound truth by which his brethren may enter into victory under similar temptations. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Our Lord had a natural desire to get things. What he desired to get was “all the kingdoms of the world.” They belonged to him. He came to earth to secure them. Satan strikes at this perfectly right desire to get things by showing our Lord all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, “and he said unto him, All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” The desire to get these kingdoms was right; but the temptation was to get them in some way not of God’s ordering. Making a step outside the will of God always means exchanging the worship of God for the worship of Satan; and so our Lord answers: “Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

Our Lord also had that third desire, the desire to accomplish things. The work he came to accomplish was to bring redemption――to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. He came to his own with the desire that they should recognize him as the One sent from God, their Messiah. Satan strikes at this right desire, and presents to Jesus a quick way to accomplish this purpose. But again it is a way with a question mark regarding God’s Word.

It has been suggested that the thought here is that Jesus could prove to the multitude gathered below in the temple court that he was indeed the Son of God when this Messianic prophecy was fulfilled before their eyes in such a startling way. The reply of our Lord is significant. “Again it is written, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God.” This quotation from Deuteronomy 6:16 refers back to the incident at Rephidim when the children of Israel made trial of Jehovah by saying: “Is Jehovah among us, or not?” (Exod. 17:7.) So Satan asked Jesus to prove that God’s Word was indeed true, and settle the fact that he was the Son of God and that Jehovah was indeed with him.

As our first parents fell at all three points of attack, so our Lord won the victory at every point. Borrowing again an illuminating suggestion from Dr. Kyle’s study of the subject, we have here the real explanation of that word concerning our Lord that he was tempted in all points like as we are. He was tempted on every side of his nature. He did not necessarily meet every individual form of temptation that has come to other men, but he did meet the Adversary at these three points, which comprise all the possible area of temptation.

The victory over temptation has been won. His victory is a guarantee of our triumph over every form of temptation that can ever meet us. It is ours to choose whether we shall share in that victory already won by our Elder Brother, or be united with the first Adam in his defeat.

THE CONQUEST OF TEMPTATION

The Word of God never offers freedom from temptation. But it does offer to Christians victory over all temptation. One of Satan’s lies that has been accepted as almost an axiom in the thinking and the experience of Christians is that no one can expect victory over every one of his temptations. But God says: “There hath _no_ temptation taken you but such as man can bear: But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13). It is significant that this verse is immediately preceded by a word of warning: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

There is ever before the Christian the possibility of falling. There is no state of grace from which he may not, before some temptation, step into awful sin. But God’s Word, which cannot be broken, stands pledged to us that in _every_ temptation there is “the way of escape.” And our Lord Jesus is “the Way.” Victory over temptation was won by Christ. Satan is an already defeated foe. Defeat in temptation came to Adam. It is for every man, and every Christian, to decide whether he will share the first Adam’s defeat or the last Adam’s victory.

The two great temptation scenes pictured in the Bible, that of our first parents and that of our Lord, show that temptation finds its way into the human heart through three avenues. When man falls before these temptations the resulting sins are what the Apostle describes as “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life.” Let us see how this Bible picture of the sins that are in the world corresponds with conditions in the twentieth century.

Africa’s Three Sins

A missionary recently back from the heart of Africa was describing some of the intimate things that she had learned regarding the natives. As she spoke of the daily life of the natives, and told of the chief problems of missionary work, there were three outstanding sins that were emphasized. There is the gross immorality, which came up for mention in connection with the description of the tribal dances and what they lead to. There is the grasping after possessions, a tendency to covetousness that is so deeply imbedded in their natures that the missionaries need to exercise the greatest care in dealing with new converts. This native quality came vividly to the missionary’s mind when she was speaking of the native Christian evangelists and the problem of compensating them in such a way that the old cupidity will not be aroused. A third characteristic of the native in all the villages is his consuming desire to secure a high place in the “Four Hundred” of his tribe. There are distinct social honors, and for many of the young men the passion of life is to win these honors.

This missionary had no intention of analyzing the outstanding sins of the natives, but these three things naturally came before her as she described their daily life. And these three comprise “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life.”

Put into briefer form these three sins are lust, covetousness, pride. All sin comes under one or other of these three classes.

America’s Three Sins

These three are the outstanding sins of America. Dan Crawford came out of Africa into civilization just about the time the “newer” forms of dancing were having their first popularity. He made the startling statement that he had seen all of these unspeakably vile dances in pagan Africa. In America, he said, they were only in a new setting. Essentially they were the same, and _they were for the same purpose_. What we call the gross sin of the African flourishes in every civilized land.

Those who read a business man’s article, published several years ago in _The Sunday School Times_, on “The Sin That We Are Afraid to Mention,” will not soon forget his arraignment of the awful sin of covetousness, “which is idolatry.” And it was _in the Christian church_ that this layman found the black sin that Christians keep quiet about. What then shall be said of covetousness in the business world?

There is finally that climax of all sins of America, and of man, the sin of pride, most subtle and most pervading of all, the sin that will culminate in man’s final defiance of God. Saddest of all, it is this sin which appears at its ugliest when it takes the form of spiritual pride in the life of one who is zealous to serve God and to be wholly yielded to him.

In a message that S. D. Gordon gave on temptation he remarked that there are three chief avenues by which Satan reaches men. He stated the three in these brief words: “Sex,” “Money,” “I.” It is exactly the classification that God makes in his Word. If, by his grace, we get victory at these three points, then indeed are we free from the dominion of sin.

So much for the _sin_ that results when man falls before one or another of these temptations. But what of the temptations themselves? How do they affect a Christian who is trusting Christ for victory? What is the practical bearing on the common temptations that meet us in everyday life? Then there is the final, most important question, what is the way to prevent these desires from conceiving and bringing forth sin?

Why Not Freedom from Temptation?

A _Sunday School Times_ reader has written of his experience. “It is not a temptation for me to take a glass of beer; there is nothing in me that requires or desires it; but sometimes it might be and has been a strong temptation to get impatient, which I have yielded to at times. Why should one be any more a temptation than the other, provided I am in victory over all sin?”

Careful distinction must be made between temptation itself and the form that the temptation may take. The appeal to a man’s natural desires may change its form, but always, in every part of his nature, he will be tempted while he is in this mortal body. The desire for beer which leads to intemperance and sin is an appeal to a natural appetite. Sin is moral, and does not reside in the physical appetites, which are merely the channels for the temptation and sin. A man who has been in bondage to drink may through the power of Christ completely lose that desire and have no further temptation to that particular form of appetite. But the temptation to intemperance remains. For the natural appetites remain. While the appetite may give up this taste or that, and thus be dead to certain _forms_ of temptation, the Christian is always liable to the temptation to go contrary to the will of God, in satisfying these natural appetites of the body: hunger, the sacred sex desire, and all the natural impulses of the body that may seek expression in lawful ways.

The _Times_ reader compares his freedom from the temptation to drink with the appeal that is made to him to get impatient. But strictly speaking, one is never tempted to be impatient. No one desires to be impatient, and Satan could not use any incentive to such a temptation. Yet we sometimes speak of these temptations to irritability, jealousy, loss of temper, as though there were some secret springs in our nature labeled “Impatience,” “Irritability,” and like qualities, and that the temptation consisted in Satan touching these springs and causing the sin. A business man does not lose his temper for the sake of the pleasure it gives him. It may be an intense desire to have justice that has led to his outbreak against some one who has dealt unfairly. The temptation has come along the line of some natural desire. So with the housekeeper who is irritated with her maid over some bit of stupidity, or the young girl who is “blue” and moody because her plans for the day’s enjoyment have been upset.

Temptation Remains――Its Form Changes

Thus it is that while a Christian who yields utterly to God and accepts Christ as his victory may instantly be free from even the temptation to drink, or to smoke, or to indulge in worldly amusements, or to do a hundred and one things that he has been accustomed to do, the temptations to the root-sins of lust and covetousness and pride _will remain with him_. They will take more subtle forms. Satan cannot tempt him now in the grosser, worldly way. He will now take advantage of this one’s very zeal for God, and will make appeal to his earnest devotion to God’s service to lead into sins of impatience and irritation and jealousy and pride.

In the face of these temptations, what is the guarantee against failure which the victorious Christian has, and which the man of the world knows nothing of? When a Christian wholly yields his life to the mastery of the Lord Jesus he has still the desire to enjoy things, the desire to get things, and the desire to accomplish things. Christ does not kill the natural desires. _It is the old self-life that Christ wants to put to death._ That is why a Christian must share in present experience the crucifixion-death of his Lord before he can share his victory over temptation. This is what surrender of self means for the Christian who desires victory. He must, moment by moment, reckon himself to be dead unto sin. He is not dead to temptation, for his natural human desires are still there.

Desires Remain――Their Object Changes

In the Christian who has learned the full secret of victory these natural desires are lifted to a new plane. His desires now do not center in the old self-life. They center in Christ. To him to live is Christ. His whole desire is Christ. He still desires to enjoy things, but only in a way that shall glorify God. He desires to get things, but to get them for God, not for self. His desire to accomplish things is to do things for God.

This does not mean that the victorious Christian will not be open to fierce temptations, just as our Lord was,――real temptations that require a real conquest. But as he abides in Christ, accepting by faith the victory that Christ already has won, instead of striving to struggle against these assaults of the enemy, the temptations remain merely _temptations_, and do not pass into the _sins_ of lust or covetousness or pride.

These three channels of temptation appear to correspond in a remarkable way with the three-fold nature of man――body, soul and spirit. And for the man in victory all these are Christ’s. Here is the human body with all the natural appetites intact. But the Christian who is reckoning the old self-life to be dead knows that this body now, with all its natural desires, is “for the Lord; and the Lord for the body” (1 Cor. 6:13), for “Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that is in you, that ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19, 20).

The Secret of the Single Eye

There are in the victorious Christian not only the desires of the body but the desires of the soul. For may we not say that the sin of “the lust of the eye” is a sin of the “soulish” part of a man’s nature? It concerns his desire to acquire the things that he sees. To the natural man these things are riches to be obtained for himself. “He that hath an evil eye hasteth after riches” (Proverbs 28:22). The wise man here connects covetousness and “the evil eye.” Let us hear the words of the Master of wise men: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth consume and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also. The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:19-24).

Here is the clear choice. The desire to get the riches we see may become the lust of the eye, covetousness, the servant of mammon. But the Christian abiding in Christ has a “single eye,” that is, he has but one passion, to lay up treasure in heaven. He has not a doubtful mind as to whether he may grasp after this or that. He has but a single question, as his eye is single, and that is how may he glorify God in his getting? He makes use indeed of the mammon of unrighteousness, but not for self’s sake,――for the sake of Another.

The Most Subtle Sin

May we not call the most subtle sin of all, the sin of pride, a sin of the spirit? The victorious Christian still has the desire to accomplish things. Indeed this desire is intensified a thousandfold. To the natural man this desire centers wholly in self, whether he knows it or not. But one in whom the old self-life is dead cries with Paul, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). With the psalmist he sings: “My soul shall make her boast in Jehovah: The meek shall hear thereof, and be glad. O, magnify Jehovah with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:2, 3). “In God have we made our boast all the day long, and we will give thanks unto thy name forever” (Psalm 44:8). This sort of boasting leads not to self pride but to meekness. “Thus saith Jehovah, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me, that I am Jehovah, who exercise lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth” (Jeremiah 9:23).

All desires of life, then, for the Christian who abides in victory, center in Christ. “And whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17).

And conquest of temptation is not a negative matter. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and only the heart filled with that love which is Christ can know freedom from lust, covetousness, and pride. Back of these three outward sins, there is the inward nature which has departed from God. Perhaps no one in our day has pointed out more clearly the three great sins of omission than has Miss Louisa Vaughan, of China. She calls these the “Christian sins”: Failure to love the Lord our God with all our heart and strength and mind; failure to love one another as Christ loved us; failure to believe on Christ so that the works that he did and greater works than these should be wrought through us. These Christian sins, Miss Vaughan insists, must be confessed and cleansed in the blood of Jesus before the fulness of the Spirit can be enjoyed. To have these commandments fulfilled in us is the Victorious Life. And only when this root-condition of unlove and unbelief (which are really one, for “love believeth all things”) is dealt with shall we know freedom from lust and covetousness and pride.

HOW JESUS LIVED THE VICTORIOUS LIFE

In what sense was Jesus a man as we are? We read that he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. But have you ever asked, Of what comfort or strength is it to me that he was tempted in all points as I am, _if he was without sin_? It is just because _I am not without sin_ that I fall before these temptations.

Is it true after all that the Lord Jesus was a man as I am?

Was not the real secret of his victory over sin the fact that he was God?

Is not the secret of my defeat the fact that I am just a man and not God?

The answer to these questions reveals one of the richest secrets in the Word concerning the real meaning of the Victorious Life. For we shall find this startling truth, that if we are to live the Victorious Life at all we must live it by the same rule as Jesus of Nazareth lived it.

Christ had to come to earth to show us what man is like. A needed emphasis has been put upon the truth that our Lord came to earth to reveal the Father,――to show men what God is like. But it was just as necessary that our Lord should reveal what God intended _man_ to be.

If we wish to know what God is like there is but one thing to do: look at Jesus. So there is no way of discovering what a true man is like except by looking at Jesus. He is the only “man,” in the true sense of the word, who has lived since sin entered the human race. Through the fall man lost the image of God, and from that day until our Lord came there was no example of man as God intended him to be.

A mistaken notion, encouraged by the poets, prevails quite commonly, that to sin is human; to forgive, divine. Whatever the measure of truth in the little sentiment, the error in it is more dangerous. To sin is not human; it is devilish. Sin is no part of man as God planned him to be. And so our Lord represents in himself what God intended a man to be, and he lived according to that plan.

The One True “Man”

The name for himself most often upon the lips of our Master was “the Son of man.” A notable Greek scholar has recently pointed out that this expression means far more than a son of a human parent. It rather suggests that gathered up into this Son of man are all the qualities of what “man” is. So, may we not say that as the fulness of God dwelt in him bodily so did the fulness of man dwell in him?

Some one has suggested that God did wonderful things through the Lord Jesus not because Jesus was God, but because he was perfect man. What does this really mean in terms of our everyday life?

Nowhere in Scripture is there such a remarkable setting forth, first of the deity of our Lord, then of his humanity, side by side, as in the first and second chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in a Son.”

“Very God of Very God”

Thus the wonderful epistle opens; and then that Son is presented first as one who expresses the very image of the substance of God. He is compared with angels, and shown to be infinitely above them. God the Father speaks of his angels as messengers; he addresses the Son: “thy throne, _O God_.” In the second chapter again are angels compared, this time with man. The same Son is shown to be made for a little while lower than the angels, taking the form of man.

In this first chapter of Hebrews the Holy Spirit, when he seeks to attest the truth that Jesus is God, calls the Old Testament to witness, and two groups of three quotations each are made, each time the words being put in the mouth of God the Father. In the second chapter when the Spirit seeks to press home the parallel truth that Jesus is a man, one with us, he uses a group of three quotations from the Old Testament. In these quotations we shall discover something of the preciousness for us of the truth that the Lord Jesus was a man, one with his brethren. “For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying ...” (Heb. 2:11).

Then there follow in the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the second chapter of Hebrews the three quotations from the Old Testament.

This is the first:

“I will declare thy name unto my brethren,
In the midst of the congregation will I sing thy praise.”

One With Our Lord in Resurrection

This is the twenty-second verse of the twenty-second Psalm, the Crucifixion Psalm. But the twenty-second Psalm is more than a crucifixion Psalm; it is a resurrection Psalm as well. This twenty-second verse that the Spirit uses to prove that Jesus is one with us is the first verse of the resurrection half of the Psalm. When our Lord rose from the dead he said, “Go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God” (John 20:17). This was the first time that our Lord linked those words “my Father and your Father.” For in his resurrection he was in a new way “the firstborn of many brethren.” “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee,” was not spoken of the eternal generation of the Son of God, the living Word who was not begotten on a day but was before all time. Neither do the words refer to the glad day when the babe was born of the Virgin. They refer to that glad resurrection day when in a new way he declared God’s name unto his brethren. This is made clear in Acts 13:32, 33: “And we bring you good tidings of the promise made unto the fathers, that God hath fulfilled the same unto our children, in that he raised up Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.”

We are one with our elder Brother, then, in death and resurrection, and here is the death-blow to Satan’s lie of universal brotherhood and universal fatherhood. The firstborn of many brethren is brother only to those who share in his death that they may share also in his new birth.

One With Our Lord as Witnesses

The third word from the Old Testament quoted in the second chapter of Hebrews which attests the humanity of our Lord is this: “Behold, I and the children whom God hath given me.” These words from Isaiah 8:18 were originally from the lips of Isaiah, who said: “Behold, I and the children whom God hath given are for signs and for wonders in Israel for Jehovah of hosts.” Dr. W. J. Erdman once remarked that when Isaiah’s two sons walked along the streets of Jerusalem they were living sermons for the children of Israel to read. The name of one was “Mahershalal-hash-baz,” and whenever an Israelite looked upon this son he heard God saying to him “the spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth.” If he believed God he knew that this was a prophecy of the terrific judgment of God that was to fall on a sinning nation. Isaiah’s other son was “Shear-jashub,” or “the remnant shall return,” and the discerning Israelite who could read this sermon aright saw in it the glad hope of God’s grace in the day of judgment saving a remnant of those who put their trust in him. The name of the father of these two sons, “Isaiah,” means “the salvation of Jehovah.”

Evidently the thought is that our Lord and we, his brethren, are still for signs and wonders in setting forth the salvation of Jehovah in its two phases, of terrific judgment that is to come upon a disobedient world and the glad message of salvation to the remnant who shall believe.

The second quotation from the Old Testament used in the second chapter of Hebrews to prove our Lord’s true humanity is in these remarkable words: “I will put my trust in him.” How can this quotation have any bearing on the fact that he is our brother and that he lived down here as a man?

The Heart-Throbs of Our Human Lord

The quotation is from the second verse of Psalm eighteen: “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust.” These originally are “the words of David, the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.” But, as a noted Bible teacher has pointed out, the Holy Spirit put into the mouth of David words that went infinitely beyond his own experience, words that could only be fulfilled in their true meaning when the greater Son of David came and met the forces of evil that were faintly foreshadowed by the enemies David met.