The Unsearchable Riches of Christ # 10

The Spirit of Grace (continued)

2. The Spirit of Wisdom (continued)

Now I am quite sure that I am speaking the truth, that you and I are brought many times to the place where we do not know how to do it, or what to do. We just do not know, we have not got the wisdom for the situation. Perhaps you are in it now, as I am. But the Spirit of Grace is the Spirit of Wisdom, and he knows how to do it. We have had some experience upon which we can say, 'I never though it would be done, and I never imagined it would be done like that, the way he Lord has done it. What the Lord has done, and how He has done it. That would never have occurred to me to do it like that.' And when you think of it, was there any better way that it could have been done? No, the riches of His grace is the riches of His Wisdom.

If you and I do believe in the grace of God brought to us by the Spirit of Wisdom - and I almost hesitate to say it because I know I am involving myself as well as you - we ought never to despair of a situation. He knows how to handle that difficulty. He knows how to get us through that dilemma. He knows how to resolve that matter. We do not know what to do, and in the presence of this quandary, this problem we cry out because it wants something so deep and so great that it is altogether beyond us. It may be that way in time, but certainly in eternity we will say, "O the depth of the Wisdom, how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out.'

3. The Spirit of Life

The Spirit of Grace is the Spirit of Power, and the Spirit of Grace is the Spirit of Wisdom, and the Spirit of Grace is the Spirit of Life. You may know that He is called the Spirit of Life - "the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:2). By the Spirit, we are told that Jesus was raised from the dead, through the eternal Spirit - the Spirit of Life (Hebrews 9:14).

We need not go back again for our analogy to the first creation, the operation of the brooding Spirit, and the result of the life in the creation. In the animate creation and in the man is the other kind of life. So the result of the presence of the Spirit in the new creation is like that. But here again, it is not just a Christian truth, a Christian doctrine, the gift of eternal life is not just one of those things that we come into when we become Christians. This Resurrection Life is a continuous abiding from day-to-day in power and experience. It is put in all the tenses of the Christian life and salvation: 'We were raised together with Him, that we should walk in newness of life.' That is in the past tense. We are now living in the good of that, so that the  life whereby Jesus conquered death should be manifested in our mortal flesh. That is in the present tense. And this goes on to the future, the future of the great revelation of life in its final, full and perfect expression. This Resurrection Life is not something only that happened when we are saved. It is a Power to work in us continually now. Well, you know it so well in hearing and teaching, but this is the Spirit of Grace.

Oh, thank God for the Power of this Divine Life, which is demonstrating itself so continually. And it seems to me, and I ought to have said this in the past, but it seems to me, more and more to be the case that the further you go on, the deeper this life has to go, because you are taken so much more deeply into death. It seems the experiences of going down become deeper and greater than ever they had been before and, therefore, the Power of His Resurrection becomes greater all the way along. This is a very hopeful thing for us. Perhaps some of you are feeling today that you are touching bottom and perhaps you say, "Well, this is the end." But do not forget that Resurrection is a reality. It is not a theory. It is not just a doctrine. It is an experience; it is a continuous experience. And, dear friends, the great revelation in the Word of God is that in the end it is going to be up and not down!

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 11)