School of Christ # 37

The Spirit's Law or Instrument of Instruction


Well now, I must come to a close. The altogether "other-ness"; by what means does the Spirit make that "other-ness" known to us? - for the Holy Spirit does not speak to us in audible language and words. We do not hear an outside voice saying, "This is the way, walk in it!". Then how are we to know? Well, it is in what the apostle Paul calls "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus."  "In him was life: and the life was the light."  How are we to know, by what means are we to be enlightened on this matter, on the difference between our ways, our thoughts, our feelings, and the Lords?" How are we to have light? The life was the light. "He that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). ""The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death."  Then the Spirit's instrument, if I may call it that, of our education is life in Christ. That is to say, we know the mind of the Spirit on matters by quickening, by sensing, discerning life. Divine life, the Spirit of Life. Or, on the other hand, if we are alive to the Lord, we know when the Spirit is not in agreement with anything by a sense of death, death in that direction.


That is the thing that no one can teach us by words, by giving us a lesson. But it is a thing we can know. You know it by reactions, violent reactions often. You have taken a course, and you get a bad reaction. You strive in a certain direction to realize a certain thing, and if only you would stop for a moment and look at it, you know that you are trying to bring that about. You know quite well that this thing is not spontaneous, that this lacks the spontaneity which is a mark of the Lord. You know the Lord is not coming through there. You know quite well that you have no sense of spontaneity and peace. It has to be forced, to be driven, to be made to happen. More or less, I think, every one of you who is a true child of God knows what I am talking about. But remember, this is the Spirit's instrument in the School for teaching Christ - life. The mark of a Spirit-governed, Spirit-anointed, man or woman is that they move in life, and that they minister life, and that what comes from them means life. And they know by that very law of life where the Lord is, what the Lord is in, what the Lord is after, what the Lord wants. That is how they know. 


How necessary it is for us to be alive unto God in Christ Jesus. How necessary it s for us to be all the time laying hold on life. If satan can only bring his spirits of death to bear upon us and bring our spirit under the wrappings of death, he will cut off the light at once and leave us floundering; we do not know where we are, what to do. He is always seeking to do that, and ours is a continuous battle for life. Everything or the realization of God's purpose is bound up with this "life". This "life" is potentially the sum of all Divine purpose. Just as in the seed there is life, not only of the seed, but of a great tree, and that life, if but released, will eventuate in that great tree, so in the life given to us in our spiritual infancy, our new birth, there is all the power of God's full and final and consummate thought. And satan is out, not just to cut off our life, but to prevent God's final interests and concerns in the full display which is in that lie which is given to us, that eternal life given to us now. The Spirit is always concerned with that life, and He would say to us, "Guard that life: do not allow anything to come to interfere with that life: see that whenever there is something that grieves the Spirit and arrests the operation of that life, you immediately resort to the precious Blood which stands as a witness against all the death, that precious Blood of Jesus, the incorruptible life, the witness in heaven to victory over sin and death, by which you can be delivered from that arresting hand of satan. That precious Blood is the ground upon which we must stand to deal with everything that grieves the Spirit and checks the operation of life, by which we come to know, and know in this living way, Christ in ever-growing fullness. The Lord help us.


~T. Austin-Sparks~


(continued with # 38 "The Governing Law of Divine Love")