The New Covenant, the Spirit of Christ, and Sin
Thank you for this quote below from Charles Spurgeon. It was very challenging. One question I had, to fill out my understanding and perhaps rewire some of my background... How does this Spurgeon quote relate to the prophecy in Jer. 31:31-34 and the nature of the New Covenant? How should we understand sin, relative to the promise that He would put His Life inside of us?
Sin has often whispered in the vain minds of men, “This action might be very wrong for other people, but it will not be evil in you. Under your present circumstances, you may take leave to overlook the command of God. True, you would severely condemn such a sin in another; but in yourself it is quite another matter. Things must be left to your superior discretion. You who do much that is good, and are such a remarkable person, you may venture where others should not.” Sin will also plead with you that your circumstances are such that they furnish you with an excellent justification: you cannot do otherwise than make an exception to the general rule, under the singular conditions in which your are now placed. It tempts you to put forth your hand unto iniquity, arguing that is the quick way, and the only way, out of your present difficulties. This is specious reasoning: yet are men foolish enough to be swayed by it.
Sin will also flatter a man with the notion that he can go just so far, and no farther, and retreat with ease. He can tread the verge of crime, and yet be innocent. Another person would be in great danger; but this self-satisfied fool thinks that he has such power over himself, and that he is so intelligent, and so experienced, that he can stop at a safe point. This moth can play with the candle, and not singe its wings. This child can put its finger between the bars, and yet never burn himself. I know you, my self-contained friend, and I know your boast that you can stand on the edge of a cliff, and look down upon the foaming sea, and while other people’s heads grow giddy, your brain is clear, and your foot is firm. You may try the experiment once too often. The deceivableness of sin is such that it makes those most secure who are most in peril. Oh, for grace to watch and pray, lest we also become “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin”! The deceivableness is further seen in the excuses which it frames afterwards. (Charles Hadden Spurgeon, 1874)
Hi Gil : ) Here’s what I think you may have been asking about...
“I say then: walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh WARS against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish.”
The battle with temptation does not cease to exist, if Paul (and everyone I know personally) are correct. The issue of the new Covenant is not that there is no more battle. Not at all. But now, to the Praise of His Glory, He lives within as the down payment of the Inheritance. The POWER to Overcome is the Gift from Heaven—that has made obsolete the Old Covenant (Heb. 8:13).
It is not that sin no longer TEMPTS, obviously. Thus the command to Believers to “no longer OFFER the parts of your body as instruments of wickedness.” This certainly more than implies that it remains a CHOICE for us to make. This is what Spurgeon seems to be saying. Now, in the NEW Covenant, the NATURE of sin is coming at us from without. Sin tempts us from that position, from OUTSIDE of us, rather than intertwined to the core of our being. (Though internal sin was once the case: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.”)
In addition, God said this to Believers: “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But admonish one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”
It is clear, in any translation, and in the Greek, that BELIEVERS can be hardened and deceived unless they have “daily” deep (to the heart, applying the Word of God with one another) interactions with other Believers. Believers can be “leavened” (1Cor. 5) if they disobey God and allow unchallenged sin to coexist in their church environment (“large” sins—murder, immorality; or so-called “small” sins—idolatry in any of its hundreds of forms and vices, swindlers, gossips, slanderers, or greedy). Anyone will be “corrupted” if they enjoy the company of those with unChristlike (“bad”) character. Believers CAN choose to break Jesus’ heart and be “hardened and deceived.”
However! The New Covenant gives believers the Gift and the Power to live in Fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as well as deeply, daily in the Body of Christ. Yet, clearly, having now the POWER to apprehend Life does not mean that all will choose the narrow road of Life. But, praise to Him, it is now POSSIBLE! Sin was crucified with Him and now we may RECKON ourselves dead to sin. We may. That is the New Covenant gift of God: Christ IN you, the hope of Glory. Before it was merely “a man saying to his neighbor, ‘Know the Lord, know the Lord!’” Now, a Union with God in the inner man means that sin does not OWN our mortal bodies, but that it is on the OUTSIDE of the truly regenerate disciple of Jesus, attempting to attract our attention. As Paul said, it WARS with our spirit, even now. But “it has no hold on us!!” in this Covenant of Grace.
Well, I guess I’m not sure what ASPECT of Jer. 31 you’re referring to, but perhaps that is a partial answer. God has given, by the grace and power of the Gift of the Holy Spirit as the deposit of the New Covenant, the POWER to overcome and the inner Knowledge of what pleases the Father. This did NOT exist in the Old Covenant. We still have the “war” that Paul referred to several times, and we can still, according to the Hebrews writer and others, be hardened and deceived if we LET the heart and mind of the world into us and don’t DRAW on the Gift of God within.
“Grace” is forgiveness of the past along with infinite power and provision for the future, “for all who Believe.” That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.
The war rages. But, as we choose to live in Christ, in the “great and precious Promises” available to us, “we are more than conquerors”! Unquestionably, Indisputably, and Immovably!!!
I know these verses are not unfamiliar to you, of course. SO, I’m sure this will make sense for you.
Love,
3/17/1999
