Isaiah's Prophecies, Chapter 61.
Chapter 61 of the Prophecies of Isaiah.
Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.
Because the Lord hath anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek, he hath sent
me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives, and the opening of
the prison to them that are bound, to
proclaim the year of the Lord's favour and
the day of vengeance of our God, to
comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them
that mourn in Zion, to give unto them
a garland for ashes, the oil of joy
for mourning, garment of praise for the spirit
of heaviness, that they may be called trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that
he may be glorified, and that they shall
build the old waste, they shall raise up
the former desolations, they shall repair the waste
cities, the desolations of many generations.
Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners
shall be your ploughmen and your vinedressers.
Ye shall be named the priests of the
Lord, men shall call you the ministers of
our God.
Ye shall eat the wealth of the nation,
and in their glory shall ye make your
first.
Instead of your shame ye shall have double,
instead of dishonour they shall have their portion.
Therefore in their land they shall possess double,
everlasting joy shall be upon them.
For I, the Lord, love justice, I hate
robbery with iniquity, and I will give
them their recompense in truth, and I will
make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their seed shall be known among the nations,
and their offspring among the peoples.
All that see them shall acknowledge them, for
they are the seed which the Lord hath
blessed.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and
my soul shall be joyful in my God,
for he hath clothed me with the garments
of salvation, he hath covered me with the
robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself
with a garment, and as a bride adorneth
herself with her jewels.
For as the earth bringeth forth its buds,
and as the garden causeth the things that
are sown in it to spring forth, so
the Lord Jehovah will cause righteousness and praise
to spring forth before all nations.
For Zion's sake will I not hold my
peace.
We have been, in these days, following through
from chapter 53 of these prophecies, in which
chapter we saw the foundation of everything laid
for a new prospect and a new day,
laid in the cross and by the cross
of the Lord Jesus.
That great, comprehensive, all-inclusive presentation of the
suffering servant of the Lord.
Now it is too late and we are
too far advanced to go back over the
ground that we have covered.
We have just moved to see the new
prospect that the cross brought into view.
The something of the wonderful features of resurrection,
as in chapter 44.
And we have gone on to the recovery
of testimony in the people of God in
virtue of the work of the cross.
Now here this afternoon we come to a
still further phase or aspect of this tremendously
many-sided fruit of the cross of the
Lord Jesus.
It is not necessary for me to tell
you that this 61st chapter of Isaiah, in
the first three verses, so full, was taken
up by our Lord Jesus himself.
After his baptism, heavens were opened and the
Spirit descended and came upon him.
The great moment of his anointing as the
servant who had just symbolically passed by the
way of the cross, as represented by his
baptism.
Now anointed, he met the enemy in the
wilderness and worshipped him completely on all points.
Then, returning from the wilderness in the power
of the Spirit, he came to Nazareth, where
he was brought up.
On the Sabbath day he entered into the
synagogue and the scripture was handed to him.
And he opened it at this point in
Isaiah's prophecies and read these verses.
And when he had read them, he handed
the scripture back to the ruler of the
synagogue and sat down, a sign that he
had something to say.
The reverse of what we do.
If we've got something to say, we usually
stand up.
But in the synagogue, if they had something
to say, they sat down and it says,
The eyes of all that were assembled were
fastened upon him, because he had sat down,
had something to say.
And he began to say, today is this
scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Thus appropriating this part of Isaiah to himself.
What we have been seeing all along is
that there is a relationship to these prophecies,
of these prophecies, to the Lord Jesus and
to this dispensation.
As well as a connection with the history
of Israel.
And this is what we come to this
afternoon.
But I want you to notice, as we
begin, that this anointing, while first resting upon
the Lord's servant, that is the title of
Christ in Isaiah, Behold my servant.
While this anointing rests upon him and of
course comprehensively, fully and supremely relates to him,
is upon him as the head.
The movement immediately goes on into day.
You notice that, don't you?
Immediately after this is declared about the servant
of the Lord, it goes on, And they
shall build the old waste, and they shall
raise up the former desolations, and they shall
repair the waste cities, the desolations of many
generations.
They and ye, the people come into the
good of this anointing.
The people of God derive the values of
this anointing.
It is as though the anointing upon him
as head just flowed down and embraced the
whole of his membership, the members of Christ.
The values are found, and as you notice,
why I read that first fragment of the
next chapter, For Zion's sake will I not
hold my peace.
We say this morning there is so much
in these later chapters about Zion, that the
good of the anointing is found in Zion.
Zion inherits all these values.
And Zion, as most of you will know,
is the Old Testament figure of the Church,
the New Testament Church.
This morning we were speaking about Zion's life.
Rise, shine, for thy light has come.
The testimony recovers.
Here we move into Zion's life and Zion's
liberty.
Notice that this is, first of all, a
message to Zion, a message to the Church.
All this has to have its fulfillment, its
realization in the Lord's people.
Israel at this time were in a state
of bondage and death, in exile, in Babylon.
The prophecies have to do with their deliverance,
their liberation from that bondage and from that
death.
To bring the bringing of this people out
into life and into liberty.
Now I have said that Jesus took these
scriptures to himself.
This about the anointing of the Lord, being
upon him.
And you remember that the earthly Zion, the
earthly Jerusalem, in other words, the Jewish people
never did come into the good of this.
They missed all these values.
That Zion did not inherit all the values
of his anointing.
But the Church has inherited it all.
This has become the inheritance of the spiritual
Israel, the spiritual people of God.
Judaism, Israel after the flesh, was the supreme
antagonist of the anointing.
By their weapon of legalism they flew him.
It must be, it must be a people
who answer to all this that is said
about the anointing.
Who come into all these further values of
the second part of this chapter.
That is, it must be a people who
can appreciate the good tidings because they are
meek.
That was not true of Israel after the
flesh.
It must be a people of the broken
heart.
And that was not true of Israel after
the flesh.
It must be a people who are conscious
that they are really captives.
And that was not true of the Jews.
They thought, they believed that of all people
on the earth they were the freest people
who knew least about bondage.
One of the points of controversy with them
and the Lord Jesus.
It must be a people who felt that
their state was one of imprisonment to enjoy
the opening of the prison to them that
are bound and so on.
The values of the anointing can only come
to people who realize in all these ways
spiritually their need, their need of this servant
of the Lord.
Working under the anointing for their good, for
their advantage.
Well now, we follow the same course as
we have followed in every connection.
We are carried of course by this part
of the prophecies and by this chapter in
particular over to the New Testament counterpart.
We have seen that there are parts of
the New Testament which answer so distinctly and
so clearly to these different phases and movements
in the prophecies of Isaiah.
And the New Testament counterpart of this 61st
chapter is undoubtedly the letter to the Galatians.
It will be necessary for us to read
a few fragments from that letter if you
will turn to it now.
Letter to the Galatians chapter 3 verse 2,
this only would I learn from you.
Received ye the Spirit?
You see we bring Isaiah 61 and here
the anointing.
Received ye the Spirit by the works of
the law or by the hearing of faith?
Are ye so foolish having begun in the
Spirit?
Are ye now perfected in the flesh?
Verse 5, He therefore that supplies to you
the Spirit and worketh miracles among you, doth
he it by the works of the law
or by the hearing of faith?
Verse 14, That upon the Gentiles might come
the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus, that
we might receive the promise of the Spirit
through faith.
Chapter 4 verse 6, Because your son God
sent forth the Spirit of his Son into
our hearts crying, Abba, Father.
Chapter 5 and verse 5, For we through
the Spirit by faith wait for the hope
of righteousness.
Verse 16, I say walk by the Spirit
and ye shall not fulfill the lust of
the flesh.
The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the
Spirit against the flesh.
For these are contrary to one to the
other, that ye may not do the things
that ye would.
But if ye are led by the Spirit,
ye are not under the law.
Verse 25, If we live by the Spirit,
by the Spirit let us also walk.
Chapter 6 and verse 8, For he that
soweth unto his own flesh shall of the
flesh reap corruption.
And he that soweth unto the Spirit shall
of the Spirit reap life eternal.
Now another brief series as you go back
again to chapter 2.
That, as you notice, all has to do
with the Spirit.
Which is of course another way of speaking
of the anointing.
Chapter 2 begins this line of the cross.
Verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ.
Yet I live and yet no longer I,
but Christ liveth in me.
Chapter 3, verse 1, O foolish Galatians, who
did bewitch you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ
was openly set forth crucified?
Chapter 5, verse 24, They that are of
Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the
passion and the lust thereof.
Chapter 6, verse 14, Far be it from
me to glory, save in the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world
hath been crucified unto me, and I unto
the world.
I am sorry to have troubled you with
all those scriptures.
But we must have a good solid sound
foundation in the words of what we say.
And you will see that it is perfectly
clear in this brief letter so called to
the Galatians.
The two main lines are the cross and
the Holy Spirit.
It is that bridge passed over between Isaiah
53 and Isaiah 61.
Now we all know that this letter to
the Galatians contains Paul's tremendous battle.
Yes, Paul was out for a fight when
he set himself to write this letter.
There is no more vehement product of the
pen of Paul than we have in this
letter.
But what is the battle for?
What is it all about?
Now of course there are theological and doctrinal
answers to that question.
But I want to say here with a
good deal to support it from this letter
and from other parts of the New Testament
that this battle of Paul's all related to
the true, the essential, spiritual character of Christianity.
Christianity, that is, the right Christianity is an
essentially spiritual thing.
That's what the battle is about for the
spiritual nature of Christianity.
It shows so clearly in every connection that
the cross, the cross leads to a spiritual
position.
To a spiritual condition.
Now the enemy, the great enemy who had
very useful instruments in the Judaizers, the great
enemy was fighting to bring Christianity onto another
than a spiritual basis.
To make of it something other than a
spiritual thing.
To resolve Christianity into a matter of rites
and ceremonies and so forth.
Rituals, formalism, earthly
and temporal symbols, representations, figures, mysticism,
which is not spirituality.
Mysticism is called spirituality.
Satan was fighting to make Christianity into something
like that.
And Paul saw that the issue was no
less an issue than the real meaning of
what Christianity is.
Real nature of Christianity.
What it is.
And Paul was not giving it away because
he had had a tremendous experience on this
very matter.
And so he set himself to fight this
thing with all the strength that he had.
To make it perfectly clear that Christianity is
not an earthly system in any respect.
It is a heavenly life.
Christianity is essentially a life in the spirit.
The cross is intended to produce that.
And if it does not produce that, there
is some reason for that in those concerns
which means that the whole nature of Christianity
has been changed.
And the meaning of the cross has been
subverted.
So Paul lunges at this thing with all
the force of the cross.
And he brings in every weapon to which
he can lay his hand.
What are some of those weapons?
Well, first of all, and it's a very,
very powerful weapon that Paul uses, as you
will notice in this letter to the Galatians,
the weapon of his own history and his
own experience.
There are a few places in all his
writings where he refers to himself more than
he does in this letter.
He brings his own history and his own
experience right forward as one of his master
strokes.
And he was the man to do it,
you know.
Now then, look at Paul of Parthas.
Look at his history.
What he tells us about himself.
Was there ever a man who had put
this whole Jewish system more thoroughly to the
test than he had?
Why, up to the hilt, right up to
the hilt, he had committed himself to the
observances, performances of every part of the Jewish
ritual.
And he tells us that in this matter
he was more and more zealous than many
of his own age.
And being more exceedingly zealous.
Well, this man has gone all the way
with this whole system of ceremonies and rites
and types and figures and symbols and forms.
He's gone all the way.
Where did it land him?
What did it do for him?
Well, we have his own exclamation after having
exhausted it most conscientiously, most sincerely, most thoroughly
because what we have to say even about
Paul of Parthas was that he's a man
who did not believe in half measures.
And he was a man who meant business.
And we can go further and say that
he was a man who was sincere in
what he did because he tells us, I
verily thought that I ought to do.
I thought that I ought to do.
Many things contrary to the name.
It was a conscientious matter with this brilliant
young Pharisee who had climbed so high on
the ladder of Judaism.
Well, where did it land him?
He says, this is where it landed me.
O wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?
Well, you couldn't get very much lower than
that, could you?
That's the last word in anything.
He says, in effect, that's where it landed
me.
That's all it did for me.
It's not going to do any better for
anybody else, however devoted they may be to
it.
It had all failed in his own experience,
in his own history.
But then he came to that end, that
ignominious end.
O wretched man that I am, crying for
deliverance.
Who shall deliver me?
Nothing, nothing and nobody of all this long
history has proved a deliverer for me.
Then he found the Lord Jesus.
And the Lord Jesus did for him all
that this tremendous sum of things had entirely
failed to do.
He found the cross and he said, I
have been crucified with Christ.
I live, yet no longer I, but Christ
liveth in me.
Do you notice the change from the word
death to the word life?
Who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?
I live, yet no longer I, but Christ
liveth in me.
He is a dead man made alive, come
to life.
He's a man who has got an altogether
new beginning, a new history, a new experience,
which has sprung out of the cross of
the Lord Jesus.
He found the Holy Spirit.
Yes, he found the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit did for him all
that this vast system of Judaism, which he
had given himself so utterly, had failed entirely
to do.
The Holy Spirit did that.
That is why in this letter he gives
such a large place to the Holy Spirit.
You notice that, don't you?
That is why here the cross and the
Holy Spirit are brought together as the ruling
line of this whole testimony.
The Holy Spirit on the ground of the
cross has reversed the whole experience, changed the
whole situation.
But then, and here I could not take
you through the letter with another ruling line.
It's the real meaning of Christ.
I'll tell you why I couldn't take you
through, because the name Christ occurs 43 times
in this little letter.
You wouldn't want me to take you all
through that at this time.
Forty-three times in a little letter, which
you can read in ten minutes, a quarter
of an hour, the name Christ.
That itself is significant, isn't it?
It shouts at us.
It tells us really what it is all
about and what Paul is really seeking to
show here is what the true meaning of
Christ is.
What is the true meaning of Christ?
That in Christ all that system has been
completely fulfilled.
The vast system of the law and all
its ordinances has been fulfilled in and by
Christ.
In the cross all righteousness has been fulfilled,
as Jesus said.
Suffer it to be so now.
Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.
That's the question of issue.
And it was all fulfilled in the cross
of the Lord Jesus.
Christ crucified has fulfilled it all.
The Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ.
That's what we are saying about Isaiah.
What is true of Isaiah is true of
all the Old Testaments.
Well, you wouldn't have me embark upon an
attempt to show that how the Old Testament
is fulfilled in Christ.
But that is what Paul is saying here.
I have been crucified with Christ.
And so, and so, because of that I
am united with him in that writing of
fulfillment of all the requirements of God.
And by the Spirit I come into the
good of what Jesus is.
And then there's another thing in this letter
which again would require our going through.
It is the meaning of grace.
Grace.
That's a great thing in the Letter to
Figulations.
Indeed, you may say that it is almost
a governing thing.
Grace.
Grace here puts us onto an entirely new
basis.
All the rituals, all the forms, all the
demands of the law only serve to accentuate
the evil conscience.
That is what Paul makes so clear.
Know that this Letter to Figulations was written
before the Letter to the Romans.
I think probably Paul, when he had written
the Letter to the Galatians, said, I must
write something more about this.
And sent himself to write the Letter to
the Romans which is a very great enlargement
upon what is here.
But the point is that the whole thing
related to this conscience.
I had not known sin but for the
Lord.
The Lord had said, Thou shalt not.
Thou shalt not.
That very saying of that thing only gave
me a bad conscience.
Upset my conscience.
And this whole system was only keeping my
conscience alive.
It wasn't saving me from an evil conscience.
But grace has done that.
Grace has put me onto an altogether different
and new basis.
And here the evil conscience is.
It wasn't saving me from an evil conscience.
But grace has done that.
Grace has put me onto an altogether different
and new basis.
And here the evil conscience is dealt with.
Yes, grace deals with the conscience, doesn't it?
Wonderful word over against the bad conscience is
the grace of God.
I'm not staying with these things.
But then we come again to this, the
fourth thing.
The meaning of the Holy Spirit.
What does Paul say pre-eminently about the
Holy Spirit here?
Well, because you're sons, God has sent forth
the Spirit of his Son into our hearts
whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit of Sonship.
And Paul sets that over against servanthood.
And there you see he gets right to
the heart of this whole matter.
We recognize that it's easy to do the
difference between a servant and a son.
We've got the secret of everything.
A servant is one who simply does what
he's told.
He has to do what he's told.
He is told that he must or he
must not.
And it's for him as a servant to
obey that call, whether he likes it or
not, whether he agrees with it or not.
Whatever it may be, whatever may be his
own reactions, he just cannot help himself.
He's a servant.
He has got to obey.
He may be inwardly in positive revolt against
the whole thing, but what can he do?
A servant of those days, of course, a
servant of day could give up his job
and resign and go.
That's how it is in our time.
If you don't like anything, well, that's what
you do.
But you couldn't do that in Paul's day.
A bond slave had no power of choice,
whatever.
He couldn't say, oh, I'm resigning.
I'm going to find another master.
He just couldn't do it.
He was bought by his soul and spirit.
And he, being revolt as he might be
with all his being, he could do nothing
about it.
He could not do anything.
He just was the bond slave of this
law.
Well, that's a servant.
What's a son?
Well, if he is a son, the true
meaning of a son, he delights to do
it.
There is the dynamic in him of love,
the dynamic of love.
He delights to do those things which are
well-pleasing unto his father.
And that very dynamic of love is the
power in him to do it.
He has another spirit.
It's the spirit of sonship working in him,
making it possible for him to respond to
every requirement.
That is the meaning of the Holy Spirit,
you see, an inward power.
And that of love, which makes everything possible.
You know as well as I do that
if you've got a mighty love for something,
there's nothing impossible.
Oh, that we had more of this love
that does not irk, does not wait to
have things pointed out, have our attention drawn
to them, but is all the time alert
and anxious and keen, watching to see what
can be done.
We need that spirit, don't we?
One of the things that has impressed us
so much on these two visits to the
Far East, it's just so impressive.
One would refer to it here by way
of illustration and example, not by way of
condemnation or criticism, but if it affects you
that way, all right, it'd be quite good.
But there you are, you go there, we
have been.
For instance, you take that great meeting hall
in Taipei with an internal capacity of 1
,600 and then provision made all around for
so many more up to over 3,000.
It's a great thing with its 2,000
panes of glass.
And you can guess that that wants a
lot of looking after, cleaning and caring for
all the electricity, all the amplifiers and so
much connected with even one center like that.
After every meeting you see an army of
men and women prepared and getting down to
it, sweeping and cleaning and mopping up and
seeing to everything, adjusting so that everything is
in its place and clean and wholesome for
the next meeting.
And you look at these people doing that
job.
And as I have done, I have said
about some fellow who looked a bit scruffy
as he was doing the job, who is
that brother?
He is Major General so-and-so.
Another little man getting down to it, really,
with his working togs on, getting down to
a dirty job.
Well, who is that young brother?
He is the Managing Director of the biggest
textile factory on this island.
And so you go.
General, Colonel, Captain.
But they're all getting to it.
And one of these high officers has made
it his business to clean those 2,000
panes of glass once every week.
And what do they do?
Well, before they start on the work, they
meet together and pray and sing.
They just pray all together, all this army
of workers, and then they have a good
sing and then they get to work.
And it's all done in a spirit of
joy like this.
I say that's not bond slavery, that's sonship.
The true spirit of sonship.
Oh, we need more of that.
We need more of that.
That is the meaning of the Holy Spirit.
You're not surprised that these people are radiant,
and you're not surprised that the question is
answered in their case, to whom is the
arm of the Lord revealed?
Indeed, it is revealed there.
Well, suffer that way of illustrating.
It's very wholesome to have seen these things
really working.
They can work.
This, then, is the meaning of the Spirit.
That is what Paul is saying here.
The meaning of Christ, the meaning of the
Spirit, the real spirit of sonship.
Satan is against that.
Oh, Satan hates that.
He'll try to break that up.
He will try to spoil that, there's no
doubt about it.
He's against that.
Well, that was the battle that Paul was
in.
Not with just Judaizers, but with this antagonist
from the great enemy against a testimony of
that kind.
The real fruit of the cross.
If Satan is thwarted along one line, he
doesn't give up.
He tries another.
You know, Satan is a great master of
strategy, and one of his favorite things is
to push things to extremes.
Now, he seeks to push this legalistic thing
to an extreme.
That's what he's done.
Now he is thwarted along that line, Paul
wins the battle, there's no doubt about it.
What is the next line of attack on
the path of the enemy?
Very well, then.
You won't have the law, then don't have
any law.
Don't have any law.
Discard all law.
You're no longer under law, you're under grace,
you can do as you like.
Just behave as you like.
Just carry on as you like.
You may, you must know no limitations, no
restrictions.
Any kind of restriction is law.
Repudiate it.
Go to the other extreme.
License instead of law.
I believe that if Paul were alive today,
he would be just as vehement against this
as he was against the other.
For here is a work of Satan indeed.
You see, if Satan cannot bind by the
law and change the whole nature of things
in that way, he will seek to dismiss
all law and make us wholly lawless.
But remember that this letter is the letter,
if of the liberty of the spirit, it
is the letter of the government of the
spirit.
We are only free when we are governed.
We sing a hymn about that sometimes, don't
we?
Make me a captive, Lord, and then I
shall be free.
A paradox, but how true, how true.
You're not free when you're giving way to
license.
Taking liberty that far.
Oh no, this letter to the Galatians and
the letter to the Romans and the letter
to the Hebrews are not documents of lawlessness.
Even if they do set aside the whole
of the Jewish system, they do not introduce
a regime of lawlessness.
But they most clearly bring in the life
and government in the Holy Spirit.
Remember, no man, no woman who is really
governed by the Holy Spirit, who is living
a life in the Spirit, will infringe any
divine principle.
Indeed, a life governed by the Holy Spirit
will be more meticulously careful about spiritual principles.
Yes, that's quite true.
You see, the change, the change is not
in the law.
That's where a great mistake has been made.
The change is not in the law at
all.
Christ crucified doesn't alter the law.
Christ himself does not alter the law.
The Holy Spirit does not alter the law.
The change is not in the law, the
change is in the man.
The change is in the man.
Grace does not say that you may now,
now because you're not under law, murder and
get away with it.
You can steal now.
Doesn't matter, you're not under law.
You can commit adultery now, you're not under
law.
You can be covetous now, you're not under
law.
Grace doesn't say that, because you're horrified at
the suggestion.
But carry that, carry that right through to
everything and anything of divine principles.
And remember that the Lord Moses is only
the embodiment of divine principles.
See, now the Lord Jesus took up that
and he said, Moses said, Moses said, thou
shalt not murder.
I say to you, that if you hate
your brother, you've already murdered him.
You're a murderer.
If you hate him, without taking any step
to kill him, you're already a murderer in
your heart.
It's the principle, you see, of the thing.
Moses said, thou shalt not commit adultery.
I say to you, you've only got to
look like that.
And you've done it, you're it, you're it.
This is terribly certain.
No, no, no.
Christ, the Holy Spirit, the cross doesn't change
the nature of the law, the principle of
the law.
It changes the man.
That is how the law is lifted from
us, because we become changed people.
The Spirit who keeps the law has now
entered into us.
And by the Spirit, if we walk in
the Spirit, we do not fulfill the lust
of the flesh.
See, it's the changed person, isn't it?
So grace does not say, you're not under
the law, therefore you do not keep the
Sabbath.
You need not observe the Sabbath.
You have got to recognize, we've got to
recognize, dear friends, that the Sabbath is the
embodiment of a principle.
It's not a day.
It's a principle.
It is the principle upon which God has
constituted the creation that there must be a
period of rest in every realm for something
new, for something new.
In all nature, there has to be a
period of rest in order that there should
be something new.
In our bodies, there has to be a
period of rest that there may be something
new.
In spiritual matters, too, in spiritual service, there
has to be a rest, a period of
rest, in which the Lord can speak and
give us something new.
It's a principle of the Sabbath.
It's not a day.
But even there, you see, even there, the
Lord has very graciously made it possible for
many to have a day, even a day,
a week still, in which to let other
things go and to keep it sacred for
the Lord for spiritual renewal.
Well, you see what I mean?
It's the principle that matters, not the outward
form.
Nothing changes the principle.
The principles of all divine laws are abiding.
They are never abrogated, never set aside, never
nullified.
They still hold good, these principles.
Jesus went behind the code and put his
finger on the principle of every part of
the code.
And he said, you may not be governed
now, ruled by an outward system of thou
shalt and thou shalt not, but you're ruled
by the Holy Spirit who will serve those
things.
Same Spirit.
I say again that the Spirit is the
Spirit of holiness.
No one who lives in the Spirit, therefore,
will do unholy things persistently, habitually.
Be unholy.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of love.
No one who lives in the Spirit will
have any other but a spirit of love,
will observe the laws of love, will violate
love.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth,
of truth.
No one who lives in and by the
Spirit will be untruthful in any sense.
And untruthfulness covers a vast ground, doesn't it?
Not only saying things that are not true,
but oh how much there is that is
not absolutely true and real and genuine and
honest and transparent.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth.
The man or woman who lives in the
Spirit will be a man or a woman
of truth.
A true one who is real.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of wisdom.
Those who live in the Spirit will have
a divine wisdom governing their lives.
You see, it's life in the Spirit through
the cross that is here in you.
The crucified man, the crucified woman who walks
and lives in the Spirit is the man
or the woman or the assembly or the
church to whom the arm of the Lord
is revealed.
We want to know the power of God,
God with us, God for us.
And it must be like this.
Cross our ground, the Spirit our life, walking,
living as sons of God.