T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 4

Marks of the Lordship of the Spirit

"Ye are an epistle of Christ... written... with the Spirit of the living God" (2 Cor. 3:3).

"Who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3:6).

"But their minds were hardened: for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remaineth, it not being revealed to them that it is done away in Christ. But unto this day, whensoever Moses is read, a veil lieth upon their heart. But whensoever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:14-18).

We were being led by the Lord in our previous meditation [this previous message is missing] to consider anew the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit.

We come now to look at one or two of the features of a truly Holy Spirit [led] life and movement, those things which will obtain when the Holy Spirit is really Lord. The chapter which we have read, and there is very much more like it in the New Testament, brings some of these things before us. Let us note again that in three distinct clauses the Lordship of the Spirit is stated and presented: "The Lord is the Spirit" (v. 17). "Where the Spirit is Lord..." (v. 17). "Even as by the Lord the Spirit (or 'the Spirit who is Lord')" (v. 18).

Where the Spirit is really Lord, certain other things in the chapter will be the nature and characteristics.

Life

The first of these is Life. You notice what place in this chapter Life has. "Written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God." "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life."

So here we have a contrast and, mark you, it is a contrast in things relating to God. That letter referred to is the letter of the Old Testament Scriptures, the law and the revelation given through Moses and through angels; so the letter to the Hebrews tells us. It is something which came from heaven from God, something which is recorded in the Scriptures of truth, which the Lord bound upon His people for a long time, and yet with all that, it is said to be dead, as a letter it killeth. The New Testament was not written when those words were penned by Paul; he could only refer to the Old Testament. Shall we be untrue if we suggest that if Paul wrote today, he could and might say exactly the same thing about the New Testament? Whether he did it or not, the truth remains as a fact that the New Testament, just as much as the Old, as a letter may mean death, may be dead, and may kill; and it is true. It is proving true, it has proved true all along that to just take the letter of the Word of God, whether in the Old or the New Testament, and use it as the letter, means death, brings death.

A mark, therefore, of a Holy Spirit committal, of the Spirit's presence, is not that you have and hold to the Scriptures. It is not that you stand by the written Word of God; it is not that you adhere to the truths of the Bible; it is not that you are all the time fighting for the place of the Bible and the Scriptures as such. That is no guarantee of Life. You may do that and still be ministering death. Fundamentalism, as it is called; orthodoxy, as it is called, is not necessarily a ministration of Life. It may still be dead and ministering death.

A mark of the Holy Spirit's presence is not that you depart from the Scriptures or that you hold them lightly, nor that you have something extra to the Scriptures, nor that we are independent of them or superior to them. The mark of the Holy Spirit's presence is that the Word of the Lord is in our case personally, individually, as well as collectively - living; it is throbbing with Life. The very first movement of the Spirit of God is that of Life.

Let no one think for one moment, and far be it from anybody to go away from here and say that I have been making light of the Word of God. What I am saying is this: that, while that Word remains the Word of God, and while it is a very sacred trust given to us for real purposes of going on into all the fulness of Christ, it has got to be something more than the Word of God as written in a book. It has got to be the Word of God to us. Until that is so, you will be all at sea and you will get into a great deal of confusion and trouble. I know of some people, I know them personally now, who, when the air raids started and came into their neighbourhood, went to the Bible and picked out some parts of the Scripture and, appropriating them, made them to govern this situation in the expectation that they would be absolutely immune from any hurt or harm or approach of evil - Psalm 91, for instance, and other Scriptures. But their homes have been wrecked and they have lost everything, and today they are in darkness because they believed that the Word of God was true and could be taken for their protection and it has not worked.

I believe that this Word as it is contained in the book is the Word of God. Do not misunderstand me. But for us in experience it is not the Word of God until the Spirit of God has said it to us and we know it. If the Spirit of God comes to you and takes some portion of the Word and says it to you, then that is the Word of God in a fuller, deeper sense than it is as written in the Book. Do not misunderstand that. It is capable of misconstruction, I know. Unfortunately, some of us have to walk round almost every step we take to make sure we have said it correctly! However, with all the care and caution, I suppose we shall not escape. You know what I mean. The thing has got to live by the Holy Spirit in us if we are coming into the fulness of God. We are not going to get into it by studying, by reading, by memorising, or by saying, "That is the Word of God, that is the Bible, that is the Scripture!" No, and in many different ways this applies.

Now, our point is that a real mark of the Spirit's presence in an unhindered way is Life; Life in the Word, Life through the Word, but Life. I am not for the moment so particularly concerned about the Word, the Scriptures. I am only using this as Paul uses it, to indicate a difference - that you may have the Scriptures and be dead. You may have all the written Word of God and be prepared to lay down your life for it, and be spiritually dead and ministering death, or not ministering Life.

So then, when the Spirit gets His way, what you expect to find is not just truth as truth - the Word, the Scriptures, as such. You expect to find people living in that Word and that Word living in them. That is His work. So, out of the darkness of a judged creation, the brooding Spirit brings Light and Life. The Spirit of Life moves - that is the point.

Let me press that for a moment or two still more closely. We all believe that the unsaved are in darkness and in death, but do we all recognise that we still carry about with us a whole weight and bulk of that darkened and dead creation, and that that part of us is very often bigger than anything else about us, and it is always present and always weighing on us? Our minds naturally are still as incapable of seeing the thoughts of God as they were when we were unsaved. Our natural abilities in this matter are still as much under incapacitation as they were before we were born again. The difference is not there at all, and the trouble with so many of the Lord's people is that they will continually move on that old creation ground in themselves with regard to the Lord's things, bringing their natural judgment to bear upon the things of God, handling the things of God on the basis of their natural capacities. The result is that you only get something more or less clever, more or less shrewd. You do not get any more Life.

The Holy Spirit, in order to make everything living, has got to deal quite definitely and radically by the Cross with every encroachment of the old creation in us upon Divine things. That is a difficult lesson to learn; it is hard to be understood, but it is true.