The Spirit of Life.

“THERE is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus; [ the remainder of the verse, as it appears in our English Bibles, should be left out]. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”¹

It seems to be generally taken for granted that by “the law of the Spirit of life" is meant the gospel. But while this is true as far as it goes, it is not the whole truth. It is through the gospel we are saved, and the Spirit is the Author of the gospel, and He is also the Spirit of life, or the Spirit who gives life to souls dead in trespasses and sins; but it is here said that He acts with all the regularity, stability, and uniformity of immutable law in the mighty work of deliverance from the law of sin and death, mentioned in the preceding chapter. The Apostle has described the distressing conflict of a regenerated man in the grasp of the law of God; for if he had not possessed spiritual life, there would have been insensibility to the evil of sin, and none but a quickened soul can say, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.”² Yet after all, it is a soul occupied with self, looking to its own efforts and sincere strivings for freedom from the law of sin and from the loathsome flesh, or corrupt nature, which he calls “this body of death.” In the compass of a few verses, the little but pretentious personal pronouns, “I,” “me,” “myself," occur forty-nine times, and Christ is not named even once, until the very close of the thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”³

But the moment the thoughts are turned to Him, the shout of victory is heard, “There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” If the abiding presence of the flesh had acted with all the fixity of law, leading him to exclaim, “I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me,”⁴ and if he had made the humiliating discovery that " the mind of the flesh is death,” he found at last to his joy that the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus also acts with the fixity of law, in the deliverance He gives from the dominion of our sinful nature, and from the agony of our own fruitless struggles against its power. The deliverance is obtained, not by feeling but by faith, not by trying but by trusting, not by resolving but by resting upon the truth of the gospel concerning the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ for sinners.

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the like ness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” There is nothing wrong about the law of God, for “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”⁵ But it could not deliver, nor justify, nor save the sinner, on account of the badness of the material with which it had to deal, the corrupt and ruined nature of man. It was weak for the accomplishment of God's purpose of love toward a lost world, because it found no thing in the human heart on which it could build righteousness. It was a plumb-line let down from heaven, showing that the intentions of the heart are not upright, according to God's demands. It was a rule or square laid upon the affections of the heart, proving that they are all uneven and irregular. It was light shining into the recesses of the heart only to discover its defilement and impurity. It was an Ithuriel spear detecting the lurking evils of the heart, and exposing their ugliness.

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God for
bid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law.”⁶ “By the law is the knowledge of sin.”⁷ “Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound.”⁸ “It was added because of transgressions.”⁹ The law, therefore, was never so much as designed to bring life or salvation to a sinner, but only to reveal to his view his terrible condition as spiritually dead. Hence it is called “the ministration of death,” and “the ministration of condemnation,”¹⁰ be cause, having detected the presence of death in man's sinful nature, it can only utter the voice of a stern and righteous condemnation, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them;”¹¹ and “whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”¹² Consequently, unless it can be shown that a man has never failed to be conformed to the requirement of the law in thought, word, or deed, it is simply impossible for him to be saved by the law, or by any thought, word, or deed of his own.

But what the law could not do, God did when, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh. The work of Christ in our behalf did not stop with offering a sacrifice for the out ward manifestations of evil seen in our conduct; it ex tended to the hidden root of evil in our depraved nature, making complete atonement for iniquity, both in its external and visible forms and in its internal and invisible principle, out of which all actual transgressions proceed. The sin-hating God met His sin-bearing Son in the dark ness that gathered around the cross, and “over all the earth,” and there entered into a full and final settlement of the tremendous question of sin, condemning it, and executing the sentence of condemnation, as it exists even in the flesh; that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

It is not strange, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is here and elsewhere called the Spirit of life, for the Spirit through the gospel imparts life to dead souls, and maintains it until the day of Jesus Christ, who says, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life.”¹³ Again it is written, “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life;”¹⁴ the two passages presenting the law of sin and death in contrast with the law of the Spirit of life. Nor must the importance which the Saviour attaches to His words, in connection with the Spirit and with life, be overlooked, when He says, “The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life;” because they explain His remark to Nicodemus, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

There are many who think our Lord here refers to baptism as the means by which we are regenerated, or born again, or by which we receive everlasting life; and hence they are worrying themselves with childish questions about the proper mode of baptism, or about the particular religious body amid the wretched divisions of Christendom that constitutes the true Church, or about the succession of ecclesiastics that have a right to administer ordinances. It seems to be forgotten that He was conversing with a ruler of the Jews, who was familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures, and who ought at least to have known the frequent allusion in these Scriptures to water, as an appropriate symbol of the word of God when accompanied by the quickening energy of the Holy Ghost.

For example, the Pharisee had surely read the promise of Jehovah, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring;”¹⁵ “for as the rain cometh down, and the snow, from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth.”¹⁶ He had surely read the glowing prophecy that reached on to the time when the kingdom of God shall be established on the earth, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them.”¹⁷ There are many similar pas sages, and Nicodemus should have known that to be born again is to be born or begotten of the word of God, applied to the conscience and heart in the life-giving power of the Spirit.

That the Lord Jesus did not teach the doctrine of re generation, or the reception of life, by baptism, is conclusively shown by the following facts. (1) He never preached about baptism, nor even alluded to it, until after His death and resurrection. Think of the Saviour Him self preserving a studied silence with regard to that with out which no one can enter the kingdom of God! (2) It is said, “Jesus Himself baptized not.”¹⁸ Think of the Saviour withholding His hand from the work of regeneration! (3) If He taught that regeneration or life is communicated by baptism, He flatly contradicted His own testimony, for He afterwards said to the unbaptized robber on the cross, “To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.”¹⁹ (4) If baptism is regeneration, no unbaptized person is saved, for there is no exception to the rule laid down in the conversation with Nicodemus. “Except a man,” or as Dr. Young properly translates it, “Except any one, be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Then the immense number of godly Friends or Quakers, and all who on a dying bed have believed, like the dying thief, without baptism, and the countless millions of dead unbaptized infants, must have perished, although Jesus declares, “It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.”²⁰

But if this is not enough to show that our Lord taught no such doctrine as regeneration by baptism, additional facts may be mentioned. (5) He said to Nicodemus in the language of rebuke, “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?”²¹ The latter could not have known Christian baptism, for it was not then instituted, although he ought to have known the quickening efficacy so often ascribed to the word of God in the Old Testament. (6) Baptism is seldom mentioned after the Acts of the Apostles, and at that time, so far as the record goes, it was administered in the name of Jesus alone. The following passages, in few of which is baptism by water even in view, are all that contain any reference to the ordinance: Rom. vi. 3, 4; I Cor. i. 13-17; x. 2; xii. 13; xv. 29; Gal. iii. 27; Eph. iv. 5; Col. ii. 12; Heb. vi. 2; 1 Pet. iii. 21. In fifteen of the Epistles there is not the slightest allusion to baptism. Could this be possible, if by it the sinner obtains regeneration or eternal life? (7) Paul writes to a large Church, “I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius; lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.”²² Think of the Apostle exclaiming, “I thank God that I was not the means of regenerating any of you, for Christ sent me not to be used for the regeneration of men.”

But surely it is needless to go further in the statement of objections, when we have the positive testimony of the Holy Ghost that it is by the word of God we are born or begotten again. “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth.”²³ “Seeing ye have purified your hearts in obeying the truth through the Spirit, [this answers precisely to the water and the Spirit] unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another with a pure heart fervently: being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”²⁴ In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.”²⁵ “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you”²⁶. “Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctiſy and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.”²⁷

It is perfectly clear, therefore, that we are born or be gotten by the word of God, which the Spirit employs as the means of imparting spiritual life; and there is the most striking analogy between the relation the Spirit sustains to the sinless human nature of Christ and the relation He sustains to the new-born soul, that is made partaker of the divine nature. (1) Christ as a man was born of the Spirit.²⁸ (2) He was anointed and sealed with the Spirit.²⁹ (3) He was led by the Spirit.³⁰ (4) He acted in the power of the Spirit.³¹ (5) He was justified by the Spirit.³² (6) He offered Himself by the Spirit.³³ (7) He was raised up by the Spirit. ³⁴ In like manner the new nature which is imparted to believers is (1) born of the Spirit, as already shown. (2) Those thus born are anointed and sealed with the Spirit.³⁵ (3) They are led by the Spirit.³⁶ (4) They act in the power of the Spirit.³⁷ (5) They are justified by the Spirit.³⁸ (6) They offer themselves unto God by the Spirit.³⁹ (7) They are raised up by the Spirit.⁴⁰

Well, then, may the Holy Ghost be called “the Spirit of life,” and well may those who want to be saved rejoice that in the same chapter He is called “the Spirit of Christ;” exhibiting the very patience, kindness, tenderness, and yearning for the lost, that caused Jesus to be known as the “friend of publicans and sinners.” Well too may they be glad that they are not summoned to a wearisome and baffling investigation of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands,” but that the Spirit of life in imparting life uses the living word of the living God, so simple a child may understand it, so plain that he that runneth may read. If they will bow to the testimony of that word, apart from the control of man's teaching, they need not continue in darkness one hour, nor remain in doubt of their salvation any longer time than is required to read, that the bosom of the Father is ready to shelter them, the arms of Christ are extended to welcome them, and the Spirit is beseeching them to receive eternal life.

1) Rom. viii. 1-4.

2) Rom. vii. 22.

3) Rom. vii. 25

4) Rom. vii. 21.

5) Rom. vii. 12.

6) Rom. vii. 7.

7) Rom. iii, 20.

8) Rom. v. 20.

9) Gal. iii. 19.

10) 2 Cor. iii. 7, 9.

11) Gal. iii. 10.

12) James ii. 10.

13) John vi, 63.

14) 2 Cor. iii. 6.

15) Isa. xliv: 3.

16) Isa. lv. 10, 11.

17) Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27.

18) John iv. 2.

19) Luke xxiii. 43.

20) Matt. xviii. 14.

21) John iii. 10.

22) 1 Cor. i. 14-16.

23) James i. 18.

24) 1 Pet. i. 22, 23,

25) 1 Cor. iv. 15.

26) John xv. 3.

27) Eph. v. 25-27.

28) Luke i. 35.

29) Acts x. 38; John vi. 27.

30) Luke iv. 1.

31) Luke iv. 14-19.

32) Rom i. 4; 1 Tim. iii. 16.

33) Heb. ix. 14.

34) Rom. viii. II; 1 Pet. iii. 13.

35) 2 Cor. i. 22; 1 John ii. 27.

36) Rom. viii. 14; Gal. v. 18.

37) John vii. 38, 39; Acts i. 8.

38) I Cor. vi. 11.

39) Rom. xv. 16; 1 Pet. i. 2.

40) Rom. viii. 11.