The Twofold Life or Christ's Work for Us and Christ's Work in Us

Adoniram Judson Gordon

• Publisher: Obscure Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781846644887, 9781443739436
• eBook ISBN: 9781528769655
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Author: A. J. Gordon, D.D. Language: English Keywords: Religion Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

XI.

IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT.

CONCLUSION.

WHAT we have thus set forth from Scripture and experience we would wish to see made real in Christian life. But we are sensible that to live a truth is far more difficult than to expound it. And yet it is to be borne in mind that doctrine is not the measure of experience, but its mould. For example, instead of aiming at self-crucifixion as the goal of our endeavour, we start from it as our point of departure. “I have been crucified with Christ,”* writes Paul. Here is the doctrinal or judicial fact on which he rests and from which he proceeds. And how constantly is he reiterating it as a truth applying to all believers without distinction. “Because we thus judge that one died for all, therefore all died.”† And what is his conclusion from this solemn judicial fact? This, that we are to strive with all diligence to make it a realized and experimental fact. “For ye died, . . . mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.”* That is to say, we are to make that true in ourselves which is already true for us in Christ, and so turn a fact of doctrine into a fact of attainment. And this principle applies to resurrection equally. “Raised together with Christ,” we are to “seek those things that are above”;† that is, to live the resurrection life in Him instead of holding to the fallen life in Adam.

Now it is already true that the Holy Ghost has been given; therefore we are to receive Him in His indwelling fulness and power. It is true that all believers are sanctified, for Paul addresses the Corinthian church in its entirety as “those that are sanctified in Christ Jesus”; therefore are we to seek with all diligence to be sanctified in ourselves, that our whole soul, body, and spirit may be presented blameless before the Lord at His coming. Here, readers, is what we mean by the “two-fold life.” It is Christ’s work for us, on the cross, on the throne, and in the clouds, on the one hand; and Christ’s work in us, by His Spirit, by His Word, and by His ordinances on the other. And the high endeavour, the life-long task which is set before us in the Scriptures, is that of conforming our inward experience to our outward standard, or in the expressive words of Paul, “Of apprehending that for which we are also apprehended of Christ Jesus.” With us, Christian attainment is not a tentative, uncertain thing. God does not say to each one of us, “Be what you can be; and since each man is architect of his own fortune, reach forth to the end for which you are best fitted.” Nay; God never talks to us, as men do, about being the architects of our own fortunes; but He holds up before us that archetype of our spiritual fortune which He has fashioned for us, and declares that this must so certainly be wrought out in us that He counts it done already, saying, “For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. Moreover, whom He did predestinate them He also called; and whom He called them He also justified; and whom He justified them He also glorified.”*

It should be an occasion of sincere gratitude, we believe, that the great evangelistic movement now going on is emphasizing so strongly the doctrine that justification and assurance rest on the external work and the external word of Christ. Inquirers are told to look for the evidence of their salvation to what the Redeemer has done for them on His Cross, and to what He has said to them in His Testament, and not to what they can discover going on within their hearts. This is the true doctrine of justification by faith which it was the work of the Reformation to revive. Faith never draws attention to itself, but points ever to the finished work of Christ. “Therefore being justified by faith.”—But the “therefore” carries the thought back to the preceding verse, and throws the whole weight of our confidence on the accomplished fact therein stated;* “Who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification.”

The Wesleyan revival of a hundred years ago laid weighty emphasis on the doctrine of the inward witness. This was necessary and inevitable in a movement which reacted so strongly from the barren Externalism then prevailing in the Church. But we have the impression that in the course of time this emphasis became excessive and oppressive, and tended to put upon anxious souls a burden greater than they could bear. How many of us remember in our own conversion the persistency with which our gaze was directed within, and how painfully we were set to watch our spiritual exercises to find the evidences of our acceptance. But now the pendulum has swung quite to the opposite extreme, and our most effective revival preachers disparage all trust in frames and feelings, telling sinners to look to Christ on the Cross, instead of searching for Christ in the heart; to receive the testimony of the Word to their acceptance, when they have believed, instead of searching for the testimony of consciousness. This we strongly believe to be the true gospel. And there is so much the more need of giving the other phase of doctrine its true place, in order to preserve the balance of truth. We should urge the seeking of the witness of the Spirit, not as the ground of faith, but as the fruit of faith. Paul has given us the two-fold life in a single paragraph in the Epistle to the Galatians—“For ye are all sons of God by faith in Christ fesus.” “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”*

It seems to us that the old Puritan writers held together these two sides of truth, and preserved their balance to a remarkable degree. They expounded most clearly the objective work of Christ, and they also unfolded His subjective work, with a minuteness and a depth of insight quite beyond anything we witness in our day. And they wrote thus clearly because they had apprehended these things by a profound interior experience. What tide-marks do the diaries and meditations which these good men left, furnish of the heights to which the Spirit’s floods rose in their souls! We have a great lesson to learn of them concerning the culture of the inner life.

Reading the high discourse of John Howe on “The Blessedness of the Righteous,” “Delighting in God,” and “The Redeemer’s Tears,” we instinctively inquire for the spiritual autobiography of this man who writes so divinely. We are disappointed, however, to find that he ordered all his journals to be burned before his death, and that in spite of the remonstrance of friends these were committed to the flames. But he has more than once expressed his sense of the importance of striving for the highest communion and delight in God which the soul may attain through the Holy Ghost. And there is one glimpse into his inner experience which shows how clearly he apprehended the twofold life. On the blank page of his Bible, penned in Latin, we find this record:—

December 26th, 1689.

“After that I had long, seriously, and repeatedly thought with myself, that besides a full and undoubted assent to the objects of faith, a vivifying, savoury taste and relish of them was also necessary, that with stronger force and more powerful energy they might penetrate into the most inward centre of my heart, and there being most deeply fixed and rooted, govern my life; and that there could be no other sure ground whereon to conclude and pass a sound judgment, on my good estate Godward; and after I had in my course of preaching been largely insisting on 1 Cor. i. 12. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, etc.; this very morning I awoke out of a most ravishing and delightful dream, when a wonderful and copious stream of celestial rays, from the lofty throne of the Divine Majesty, did seem to dart into my open and expanded breast. I have often since with great complacency reflected on that very signal pledge of special Divine favour vouchsafed to me on that noted, memorable day; and have with repeated fresh pleasure tasted the delights thereof. But what of the same kind I sensibly felt, through the admirable bounty of my God, and the most pleasant comforting influences of the Holy Spirit, on October 22nd, 1704,* far surpassed the most expressive words my thoughts can suggest. I then experienced an inexpressibly pleasant melting of heart, tears gushing out of mine eyes, for joy that God should shed abroad His love abundantly through the hearts of men, and that for this very purpose mine own should be so signally possessed of and by His blessed Spirit. Romans. v. 5.”

Rightly does this lofty thinker hold that it is the divine life within, penetrating to the most inward centre, and being deeply fixed and rooted there, which determines our character. The outward look of faith saves us; the inward life of faith sanctifies us. The human face takes its expression from the soul within, that inner sculptor who fashions our features by the touch of thought and feeling and desire. No countenance can copy the lines of beauty or grace from another; they must be shaped from within. And so it is “the law of the Spirit of Life” operating within us that determines our character and example, not any ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Contents
• I. Life and Life More Abundant
• II. Regeneration and Renewal
• III. Conversion and Consecration
• IV. Salvation and Sealing
• V. Sonship and Communion
• VI. Righteousness and Holiness
• VII. Peace with God, and the Peace of God
• VIII. Power for Sonship and Power for Service
• IX. Access and Separation
• X. Grace and Reward
• XI. Ideal and Attainment