God’s Object in Connecting Us with Christ.
—The Lord unites believers with himself that they may bring forth fruit. As an illustration of this union he uses the marriage institution. “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” Rom. 7:4. God ordained the marriage institution for the purpose of producing more of like kind. Again our Lord illustrates this union by the symbol of the vine and its branches. He is the Vine, his people are the branches to bring forth fruit. “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.” John 15:8. The Perverted Life.—That which produces fruit is life. That which produces good fruit is the good life working in its own way. Now God is “the fountain of life.” All life comes from him; but in the wicked man, the sinner, that life is perverted and becomes, or issues in, death. But while it is operative and perverted by the carnal heart, it brings forth, or produces, the fruit or works of the flesh. Gal. 5:19–21. It is not a natural fruit that is produced, but fermentation, the product of decay and death. All these evil things spring from the evil heart. Mark 7:19–23. There is life, life that came from God, but it is perverted by sin, and tends to death and destruction. While it is originally from God, it is not the life of God; for the wicked are “alienated from the life of God.” Eph. 4:18. That is, they do not know God’s life in its normal workings, and therefore do not know it at all as it is in him, and in Jesus Christ. The Spirit Is Life.—But to that man which renounces all of self, all of the perverted life, and chooses Christ for all he longs to be to men, the Spirit of God comes into the heart, transforms the life, and turns the energies and activities of the being into their normal channels. Man is recreated. The channels closed by sin are opened. The perverted channels of sin are closed. Man is placed once more where God can work in him, where the life in him may bring forth fruit to God’s glory. The child of the disobedience of unbelief becomes a child of the obedience of faith; the sinner is made righteous; the law of sin and death becomes the law of the spirit of life. But it is God’s Spirit, God’s life, which works out all this change. “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” Rom. 8:9, 10. When the carnal heart reigned, the life of God, perverted by sin, worked out death; but when the regenerating power of the word of life is permitted to work among the dry bones of sin and death, the Spirit works out life and its fruits of righteousness. And it will prove life to every heart which will admit its precious, vitalizing presence. The Fruit of God’s Life.—What will God’s Spirit in the heart do?—First of all it will lead to obedience to God’s law; for the law is God’s law, and the Spirit is God’s Spirit. They are as inseparable and indivisible as God. Says the Lord: “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.” Eze. 36:27. This is the effect of the Spirit of God within the heart. That spirit, whatever its profession, which draws away from God’s law and opposes his commandments, is not of God. The doing of the law will be manifest in the deeds of the life, or the fruits of the Spirit. Gal. 5:18–23. This is evident from two expressions: (1) “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.” Under the law is under the condemnation of the law. But the law condemns only those who transgress its righteous demands. Therefore to be led of the Spirit is “to go in the path of Thy [God’s] commandments.” Ps. 119:35. And again, against that life in which is manifest “the fruits of the Spirit” “there is no law.” The fruits of the Spirit are therefore in harmony with the law of God. “The righteousness of the law,”—its very spirit and substance as well as form,—is fulfilled in those “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8:4. The possessing of God’s Spirit is therefore to be in harmony with his holy law, for his law and Spirit are one. The Spirit is life; the law is its expression in words. Why not, then, receive God’s Spirit. In it is all power, light, and blessing. In the “keeping” of his commandments “there is great reward.” He is more willing to give his Spirit to them who ask in humility and faith than is an earthly father to give good gifts to his children. He will not turn one away who seeks him with all the heart.