The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 89

:

ORGANIC AND INDIVIDUAL

49

His righteousness was tested, tried, and sifted: it was even fire of God's wrath. And this righteousness converted from " original rectitude " into " righteousness vindicated" was imputed to the ungodly. Therefore the ungodly, when justified by grace, has nothing to do with Adam's ^toX^ before the fall, but occupies the position of wise.

by the consuming

tested

Jesus after the resurrection.

He works no more

He

possesses a good that can not be

own. His works, zeal, love, and praise flow not from his own poverty, but from the overflowing fulness of the life that was obtained for him. As it is often expressed: For Adam in Paradise there was first work and then the Sabbath of rest but for the ungodly justified by grace the Sabbath rest comes first, and then the labor which flows from the energies of that Sabbath. In the beginning the week closed with the Sabbath for us the day of the resurrection of Christ opens the week which feeds upon the powers of that resurlost.

for wages, but the inheritance is his

;

;

rection.

Hence the great and glorious work of re-creation has two parts First, the removing of corruption, the healing of the breach, the death to

sin,

the atonement for guilt.

first order, the changing of the and establishing of a new order. The last is of greatest importance. For many teach differently. Altho they grant that a new-born child of God is not precisely what Adam was before the fall, yet they see the difference only in the

Second, the reversing of the

entire state, the bringing in

reception of a higher nature. in degree.

degree son,

is

This

called the

The

state is the same, differing only

the current theory.

is "

This nature of higher

divine-human" which Christ bears in His Per-

which being consolidated by His Passion and Resurrection is to the new-born soul, raising the lower and degraded

now imparted

nature to this higher

life.

This theory directly conflicts with the Scripture, which never speaks of conditions similar yet differing in degree and power, but of a condition

Adam,

sometimes

far inferior in

power and degree

to that of

but transferred into an entirely different order.

For this reason the Scripture and the Confession of our fathers emphasize the doctrine of the Covenants; for the difference between the Covenant of Works and of Grace shows the difference between the two orders of spiritual things. They who teach that the new birth merely imparts a higher nature remain under the 4

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