It is only in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ that we have truth fully brought out. I may learn truth through the Holy Spirit, and He is the only power of my knowing the truth, and is therefore called “truth” in 1 John 5, 6.
When you speak of the truth, you do not mean merely either the divine nature in its perfectness, or His person “from whom cometh down every good gift” (Jas 1:17). But why is it that the Lord Jesus should be emphatically the truth? He is the One who objectively has presented to me that which shows me the bearing and relationship of everything to God as well as to man.
If I want to test any one thing, I never can arrive at its full character till I view it in connection with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is the truth subjectively, because no man can behold the Lord Jesus or find the truth in Him without the Spirit's ministry. He is the revealer of the Lord Jesus. Our own mind cannot see Him. Even the new man cannot of itself understand Him, or enter into the things of God (the new man is from the Lord Jesus—through the Spirit - Col 3:10, but it requires the Spirit’s teaching in everything - 1Co 2:11).
You will observe how straight strikingly this was shown when the disciples themselves, already born of God, had to wait until the Lord opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and after that for power to act on them. After they were converted, they needed the ministry of the Spirit to enable them to understand the Scriptures. Besides, again, they must wait for power to testify of the truth from the Scriptures to others. They required to have the ministry of the Spirit, distinct from the new nature, for the purpose of entering into the things of God.
Mere human nature never understands the things of God, but the new man does. But in order to do it, the Spirit's ministry is requisite. The new man is characterized by dependence. The Holy Spirit acts in His own power. So we do not merely need dependence upon God, but enablement from the Spirit to enter into truth. It is not a matter of being converted merely, but of the practical entering into the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the ways of the Father as brought out in the ways of His son.
To gather evidence of God's being is one thing; to know Him is another. I may come down to the Law, but does it give me the truth? In no way. It is not that the law is not good and holy, but it is never called, nor in itself could be the truth. Its design was more for making the discovery of man than of God. Its operation was the man - might thereby learn what he is in himself. It runs like a plough share when directed by the Spirit into the heart, and lays bare many furloughs, and discovers what man never knew was there before.
But the law was never meant to show what the Father is to man in grace. At best it declares what a man ought to be as well as do, but this is not the truth. What I thought to be is not God's truth, but my duty. Law was a standard for man in the flesh, and hence it never was given till man was a sinful man. “The Law was given by Moses,” (Jhn 1:17) and not to or by Adam. The commandment laid upon Adam is never called the law, although it was, of course, a law.
You will never find truth, even in the Bible, if you sever it from the Lord Jesus Christ. But the moment the same blessed One, Who has shown me in His own Life and death what man is has also shown me in the very same what the Father is, then all the clouds break and the difficulties vanish. Now I know my Father, beholding Him in the Lord Jesus Christ.
—William Kelly (1821-1906)
MJS daily devotional excerpt for October 19
Many Christians are bogged down between the nursery and the schoolroom; between the playpen and the workshop. These resist the weaning period; but the hungry-hearted are eager to have their feelings replaced by faith.
“It is true that the Father does take up those who are spiritually immature and permit them to speak His words years before they fully understand their import; but He does not wish any of us to stop there. We may go on that way for a while, but is it not true that from the time when He begins in us His work of formation through discipline and chastening, it growingly dawns on us how little in fact we know of the true meaning of what we had been saying?
“Our Lord intends that we should reach the place where we can speak, with or without manifest gifts, because we are that which we share. For in Christian experience the spiritual things of God are less and less outward, that is, of gift, and more and more inward, of life. In the long run it is the depth and inwardness of a work that counts. As the Lord Jesus Himself becomes more and more to us, other things—and this must include even gifts—matter less and less. Then, though we teach the same doctrine, speak the same words, the impact on others is very different, manifesting itself in an increasing depth of the Spirit’s work within them also.”
“Our Father’s hand is on the helm. We are being guided, even when we feel it least. The closed door is as much His Providence as the open, and equally for our good and the accomplishment of His own great ends. And one learns at last it is not what we set ourselves to do that really tells in blessing so much as what He is doing in and through us.”
Unknown
When you speak of the truth, you do not mean merely either the divine nature in its perfectness, or His person “from whom cometh down every good gift” (Jas 1:17). But why is it that the Lord Jesus should be emphatically the truth? He is the One who objectively has presented to me that which shows me the bearing and relationship of everything to God as well as to man.
If I want to test any one thing, I never can arrive at its full character till I view it in connection with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is the truth subjectively, because no man can behold the Lord Jesus or find the truth in Him without the Spirit's ministry. He is the revealer of the Lord Jesus. Our own mind cannot see Him. Even the new man cannot of itself understand Him, or enter into the things of God (the new man is from the Lord Jesus—through the Spirit - Col 3:10, but it requires the Spirit’s teaching in everything - 1Co 2:11).
You will observe how straight strikingly this was shown when the disciples themselves, already born of God, had to wait until the Lord opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and after that for power to act on them. After they were converted, they needed the ministry of the Spirit to enable them to understand the Scriptures. Besides, again, they must wait for power to testify of the truth from the Scriptures to others. They required to have the ministry of the Spirit, distinct from the new nature, for the purpose of entering into the things of God.
Mere human nature never understands the things of God, but the new man does. But in order to do it, the Spirit's ministry is requisite. The new man is characterized by dependence. The Holy Spirit acts in His own power. So we do not merely need dependence upon God, but enablement from the Spirit to enter into truth. It is not a matter of being converted merely, but of the practical entering into the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the ways of the Father as brought out in the ways of His son.
To gather evidence of God's being is one thing; to know Him is another. I may come down to the Law, but does it give me the truth? In no way. It is not that the law is not good and holy, but it is never called, nor in itself could be the truth. Its design was more for making the discovery of man than of God. Its operation was the man - might thereby learn what he is in himself. It runs like a plough share when directed by the Spirit into the heart, and lays bare many furloughs, and discovers what man never knew was there before.
But the law was never meant to show what the Father is to man in grace. At best it declares what a man ought to be as well as do, but this is not the truth. What I thought to be is not God's truth, but my duty. Law was a standard for man in the flesh, and hence it never was given till man was a sinful man. “The Law was given by Moses,” (Jhn 1:17) and not to or by Adam. The commandment laid upon Adam is never called the law, although it was, of course, a law.
You will never find truth, even in the Bible, if you sever it from the Lord Jesus Christ. But the moment the same blessed One, Who has shown me in His own Life and death what man is has also shown me in the very same what the Father is, then all the clouds break and the difficulties vanish. Now I know my Father, beholding Him in the Lord Jesus Christ.
—William Kelly (1821-1906)
MJS daily devotional excerpt for October 19
Many Christians are bogged down between the nursery and the schoolroom; between the playpen and the workshop. These resist the weaning period; but the hungry-hearted are eager to have their feelings replaced by faith.
“It is true that the Father does take up those who are spiritually immature and permit them to speak His words years before they fully understand their import; but He does not wish any of us to stop there. We may go on that way for a while, but is it not true that from the time when He begins in us His work of formation through discipline and chastening, it growingly dawns on us how little in fact we know of the true meaning of what we had been saying?
“Our Lord intends that we should reach the place where we can speak, with or without manifest gifts, because we are that which we share. For in Christian experience the spiritual things of God are less and less outward, that is, of gift, and more and more inward, of life. In the long run it is the depth and inwardness of a work that counts. As the Lord Jesus Himself becomes more and more to us, other things—and this must include even gifts—matter less and less. Then, though we teach the same doctrine, speak the same words, the impact on others is very different, manifesting itself in an increasing depth of the Spirit’s work within them also.”
“Our Father’s hand is on the helm. We are being guided, even when we feel it least. The closed door is as much His Providence as the open, and equally for our good and the accomplishment of His own great ends. And one learns at last it is not what we set ourselves to do that really tells in blessing so much as what He is doing in and through us.”
Unknown
