The reason for this life of defeat is that Christians mingle law and
grace, and this makes complete victory an impossibility. When we are
in defeat it is because we are under the Old Covenant, which can make
nothing perfect. It may be that we are clear intellectually on the
distinction between law and grace, but it is the mingling of them in
daily experience that results in defeat before sin. The secret of
victory, then, is to get entirely from under law and get wholly under
grace for the needs of the present moment. What does this mean? How can
it be done?
Probably no one has put more concisely and clearly the distinction
between the Old Covenant and the New than has Andrew Murray in his “Two
Covenants.” Under the Old Covenant, he points out, God says: “Obey me,
and I will be your God.” In the New Covenant God speaks in some such
words as these: “I will put my law in your heart, and ye shall obey
me.” In the Old Covenant, Andrew Murray says, there were two parties,
man and God. Man failed to keep his part of the agreement and the
covenant was broken. In the New Covenant there is only one party. God
undertakes the whole responsibility. The first is law. The second is
grace. If man has any responsibility in the second, except to receive
God’s provision through faith, then it is no longer of free grace.
A clear-thinking Presbyterian elder, a man of culture and trained mind,
who recently saw the truth of Christ as his victory for the first time,
was asked what he thought was the difference between the Old Covenant
of works and the New Covenant of Grace. Several verses of Scripture had
just been quoted which brought out the distinction. He was a man of
few words, and he answered by holding up two fingers of his left hand,
and one finger of his right hand. He had seen at once, five minutes
after entering into victory, what Andrew Murray makes the theme of his
helpful book on the Spirit-filled life,――that in the New Covenant it
is not man co-operating with God, but God assuming the whole work, and
doing it for man.
“I Could Not Live Up to It”
Another Presbyterian elder, also a clear thinker, a lawyer of ability,
was recently facing the question of the need of victory in his own
life. When the Scripture promises were presented to him, and he was
asked whether he would take victory, his reply was a decided “No.”
“Why won’t you?”
“Because I am not sure I could live up to it.”
He still had two parties in his contract. He was still thinking
under, and living under, the Old Covenant.
It sounds reasonable when a Christian says, “Of course, I am sure that
_Christ_ will always be faithful to his part, but the failure will
come because of _my_ weakness.” When a Christian says that, he is not
in victory; he has missed the very heart of the Victorious Life. He is
still under the Old Covenant. For God made the New Covenant with full
knowledge of that weakness of mine. Indeed _it was just because of that
weakness of mine that the New Covenant was made_. Had the weakness not
been there the Old Covenant would have sufficed. The New Covenant is of
no avail, and means nothing, if it is not to operate in spite of that
weakness.