The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 520

XII.

The Old Man and "

the New.

That we being dead unto live

sin should

unto righteousness."

—

i

Peter

iv. 24.

The

They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." We must maintain this glorious testimony, altho our own experience often seems to contradict it. Not experience, but the Scripture, teaches us divine Psalmist sings

truth; nor is

own

it

:

"

as tho the procedure of the divine operation in our

heart could differ from the testimony of the Sacred Scripture,

but that our experience often interprets our real spiritual condition incorrectly.

Our knowledge

of self is very small.

The plummet

of our self-

consciousness scarcely reaches below the surface, while God's holy

eye penetrates the waters of the soul to the very bottom. We are ignorant of much that takes place in the soul, and what we perit ofteti presents itself to our consciousness as different from what it is in reality. If our self-knowledge were perfect, the testimony of our spiritual experience would be as reliable as that But this not being so, not even among God's of the Scripture. children, spiritual experience, tho helpful, may never weaken the

ceive of

Word

of God.

Hence, tho we discover in ourselves an ever-grow" They go from is still sure

ing weakness, the Scripture testimony

:

strength to strength."

But who goes from strength to strength? Surely not the old man. It may not be said that regeneration effected a change in him which is constantly increasing, which enables him to make such commendable progress that by divine help he will probably succeed in the end. This is not so. vScripture teaches that the old man is dead, condemned to die forever; that he is incorrigible and can not be restored, saved, or reconciled. He is hopelessly lost. And instead of gradually becoming himself again he must be cruci-

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