Part 2 The Fruits of the New Birth
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Take Him at His word, and though He slays you, yet trust in Him. Be your faith that before whose far-seeing eye the present pales, the future brightens; which diminishes the present things of trial, and suffering, and need, and magnifies the future things of happiness, fruition, and glory. Be your faith that which purifies the heart, which works by love, which walks humbly with God, which lies securely and peacefully at anchor upon the promise in the storm, which reposes quietly in the very bosom of Him whose chastening hand has smitten you. O glorious fruit of righteousness! Lord, let Your sun warm, let Your springs water, let Your hand prune my soul, that I may be filled with this precious fruit of faith, to the greater honor and glory of Your holy name!
In close proximity to the fruit of faith is that of LOVE. Love is that Divine principle which more than all others, perhaps, assimilates us to the Divine nature. "God is love." And when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, sanctifying our character, molding, influencing, and constraining us, we are like God. The religion of Jesus is the religion of LOVE. It is the revelation of love--the sacrifice of love--the story of love--the love of the Savior to sinners; and, as the subjects of His religion, the fruit of love will be seen in the life we live. Love, then, is the fruit of the new birth--"Love is of God, and every one that LOVES is BORN OF GOD, and knows God."
The absence of this fruit of righteousness--love to God supreme influencing and assimilating; love to Christ constraining us to obedience and conformity; love to the saints because they are saints, tiding over all differences of judgment, prejudices, and infirmities, manifesting our love to the Lord in the disciple; love to the Word of God, delighting in it more than in our necessary food, sweeter to our taste than the honeycomb, and more precious in our estimate than pure gold--negates our claim to the possession of the new birth; for, if we are begotten of God we shall partake the nature and reflect the image of God, and shall love, not only Him that begat, but them also who are begotten of Him.
How truly lovely and precious is this grace of love! The obedience that springs from it is sweeter far and more honoring to the Lord than the obedience which is the result of fear only. As fruit forced in a conservatory has not the flavor of fruit of spontaneous growth, fruit brought to perfection by the sun, so the obedience that is coerced by the law lacks the sweetness and fragrance of the obedience that is constrained by the gospel. Love makes all the difference!
Now, in proportion to the growth of the Divine nature within us, and the fidelity of our likeness to God, will be our love--love to Jesus Christ and to all His saints--the poorest, the lowest, the weakest. And we ought to love the saints wherever we meet them,unlovely though their natural properties may be. Does not the Lord Jesus, the great High Priest, bear engraven upon His heart the names of all His people? Then, surely we, as a royal priesthood, ought to bear upon our hearts, in affection, sympathy, and charity, all who thus are borne upon the heart of Christ. No, more, we are called upon, as partaking of the Divine nature, to love ourenemies--"I say unto you, Love your enemies."
An unregenerate man will love his friend, but hate his enemy; a regenerate man, under a proper and holy influence, will love both--his friend and his foe. Such is the fruit borne by the renewed nature. But, oh, how lamentably deficient are we of this fruit of love! How little of it exists in the professing Church of God! Here and there a cluster is seen--its very rarity increasing its preciousness--but the easily offended demeanor of ecclesiastical and doctrinal systems too thickly veils it from view, even where it exists; and so the Church of God is robbed of much of her loveliness and power, and God and Christ of much of their praise and glory.
But, oh, cultivate this fruit of righteousness! Look well to this, the badge of your Christian discipleship, the evidence of your new birth. Lacking it, what though you speak with the tongues of men and of angels; what though you have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; what though you have all faith, so that you could remove mountains; what though you bestowed your goods to feed the poor, and give your body to be burned--yet, lacking the grace of charity, or LOVE, you lack the most genuine and authenticating evidence that you are born of God; and all else is but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, (1 Cor. 13:1-3.)
And what precious fruit of righteousness is that which appears in the breathing of the renewed and devout soul after GOD and HOLINESS!One of the finest pages in David's recorded experience is that traced with these holy breathings--"O God, You are my God; early will I seek You--my soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is." Here is the divine nature ascending to its Divine Savior, rising to its level; and where it exists, to that Savior it will ever ascend. That which is divine reaches after the divine. That which is holy breathes after holiness. That which is of and from God is, in its nature and actings, godly.
The moral gravitation of the unregenerate is earthward--that of the regenerate heavenward. Having borne the image of the earthly, the believer now bears the image of the heavenly. Oh, it is a holy and impressive spectacle that of the soul breathing after God! When none but God will satisfy your longings; when your spirit pants for Him as the deer pants for the water-brooks, and more intensely; when, amid the din and turmoil of the world, like Isaac, you go forth to meditate in the field at eventide, your heart ascends to God in holy breathings, devout desires, and spiritual prayers, it is as though earth were kissing heaven, the human rising to the Divine, the finite losing itself in the Infinite. Such is prayer! a worm basking in the sun; a beggar at the beautiful gate; a child in communion with its parent; a sinner in audience with the Savior; a saint in fellowship with God. Drawing near to God in either of these relations, the nature and the actings of the renewed heart are exhibited in one of their holiest and most impressive forms.
Beloved, seek earnestly more of this religion--the religion of vital communion with God. Earth has no sweets, the creature no delights, sense no joys like this. It is the only religion that proves its divine source and its heavenly nature. It is the only religion that meets the yearnings of the soul, that satisfies its desires, quenches its thirst, and sustains it amid afflictions and trials--the religion that deals closely, filially, humbly with God. Whatever heaviness, leanness, or sadness you may feel--when you have not a word to express, nor a heart to pray--never be tempted to give up prayer, to forsake the throne of grace. Go with your dullest, lowest frame--go with your shaded spirit, your sealed lips--and if you but lie in the presence of the Lord, detained, sad and mute, before the Ark, you will yet be conscious of a presence and a power which, soft and silent as the light, will diffuse life, joy, and radiance through your soul. Oh, give yourself to prayer!
God knows your sorrows, Christ interprets the language of your tears, the Holy Spirit understands the meaning of your groans. May this fruit of righteousness abound in us, who through grace believe, more and more! May our Christianity be more marked by poverty of spirit and mourning for sin; more faithful dealing with conscience and with our own hearts; more intense thirsting after holiness and more close communion with God; in a word, more of that divine vitality that ascends to, and loses itself in, God, the infinite Fountain of uncreated bliss! "As the deer pants after the water-brooks, so pants my soul after You, O God."
But by whose grace and vitality does the believer bring forth these fruits of righteousness? The apostle tells us--"Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, WHICH ARE BY JESUS CHRIST." Here is the true source of our fruitfulness. We bear no holiness but in union with Him--"From Me is your fruit found." Engrafted into Christ, we necessarily become one with Christ; and in virtue of this vital and spiritual union we bear the fruits of righteousness. One with Christ, we are one with Deity, are one with mediatorial life, and so one with all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Surely, if ever there existed a true, vital graft, it is this. Blessed union! one with the Lord Jesus! One with Him, as the branch is one with the vine. Thus united to Christ, by Christ dwelling in us through the Spirit, we partake of His life, and His life germinates in us; and so we yield the fruits of righteousness by Him.
Not only in virtue of our union with Christ, but in consequence of our receiving from Christ, we become fruitful. Once more we quote that most remarkable and significant declaration in Hosea--"From Me is your fruit found." The New Testament echo of these Old Testament words is in John 15:4--"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me." Now, this abiding in Christ is the believer's own act, and involves the life of faith he lives on the fullness, sufficiency, and person of the Lord Jesus. As the branch extracts its life and nourishment from the vine, and thus becomes fruitful, so the believer receives out of Christ's fullness grace following upon grace, strength succeeding strength, life quickening life; and thus he is filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ.
Oh, it is by the life of Jesus, the supplies from Jesus, the intercession of Jesus--drawing constantly and largely from His overflowing fullness--taking to Him every corruption, confessing every sin, unveiling to Him every sorrow--that we become fruitful in faith, and love, and prayer. From Christ, and not from ourselves, we derive the skill by which we foil our foe; the grace by which we accomplish our service; the strength by which we sustain affliction; the life, the energy, the self-denying spirit by which, in whatever position we are placed, we glorify God. Leaning thus upon Christ--abiding thus in Christ--traveling thus to Christ--associating Christ with every duty, and cross, and trial, and service--doing nothing, undertaking nothing, enduring nothing without Jesus--we shall be filled with holy fruit.
How sweet it is thus to have Jesus blended with every thought, and feeling, and act! Conscious of His presence, to enter upon every self-denying service, to bear every painful cross, to lay down every precious idol, to drink every bitter cup to which He calls us--this it is to bear fruit by Jesus Christ. It is our fruit, indeed, but it is from Him we derive and by Him we bear it. Oh, how kind and gracious of the Lord to call it our fruit, as if it were all our own, and not all from Him! But this is so like Jesus. He takes the crown, as from His own head, and places it upon that of His saints. "YOUR FAITH has saved you." And yet, that faith was all the work of His own Spirit and the free gift of This own grace. And still He commends and crowns the lowly recipient, as though the merit and the achievement of the faith were all our own! Oh, what a gracious, condescending Savior is ours!
Lord, we give You back the crown You would place upon the head of our graces; for, from You alone is our fruit found, and to You belong, without a rival, the garland of our praises and the diadem of Your own glory. Without You, severed from You, we can donothing. Shade Your sun, suspend Your showers, withdraw Your life, and we droop, wither, and die. Every grace perishes. Faith falters and fails; hope droops and is crushed; love wanes and expires; and we become barren and unfruitful, cast forth as a branch that is withered.
Look, then, O believer, to Christ the living vine to make you fruitful of holiness. No spiritual fertility of soul will be promoted by looking either within yourself or to your duties. You must ABIDE in Christ. Realizing your union with Him, your acceptance and completeness in Him, your supplies of grace as from Him; looking to Christ, living upon Christ, associating everything with Christ--you will become filled with the fruits of righteousness. "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples."
The great END of all our fruitfulness is, the praise and glory of God. And what an appropriate and sublime conclusion is this! It is a solemn, and yet a glorious truth, that everything God has created shall terminate in Him as its great and final end. All shall result in His glory. "I have created him for my glory." "The Lord has made all things for Himself." The salvation of the righteous, and the everlasting destruction of the wicked, shall alike show forth His praise and illustrate His glory. Yes, those fruits of righteousness--that lowly faith, that humble love, that feeble grace, that imperfect service, that weak endeavor to please Him, that victory over the tempter, that conquest of sin, that heavy cross carried, that bitter cup drank, that long, lingering illness, that suffering of death--all, all shall redound to the praise and glory of JEHOVAH'S grace when the Lord shall come to be admired by His saints, and to be adored in all those who believe. If only the preparation of the soil, the sowing of the seed, the culture of the plant, the maturing of the fruit, brought such praise and glory to the Lord God here, oh, how great will be the revenue of praise and glory He will receive when all the golden sheaves are sickled, and the fruit is garnered, and heaven resounds with the song of the HARVEST HOME!
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