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The letter
kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2
Corinthians 3:6)
If you want to know
the mind of the Spirit about anything, you
will know it by quickening, by Life in that
direction. If you want to know what the
Spirit is against, you will know it because
there is death in that direction in your
spirit, you have no Life, you say, in that
direction. All right, that means you know
the Lord, you know the Spirit, you know what
it is to move on the basis of the law of the
Spirit of Life in Christ. The Father
governed Him by that law. He governs us by
exactly the same law when we are joined to
the Lord, one spirit. Guidance, direction,
is a matter of Life in the Spirit, Life by
the Spirit. The Lord Jesus had His life
ordered, governed, conducted, arranged in
every detail by the quickening Spirit; the
Spirit of Life in Christ.
These Jews came
along and said: "Here is the Scripture, and
the Scripture says You ought not to do
certain things, and You are doing them; You
are all wrong because the Scripture says
this!" When Christ so acted was He violating
the Scripture? Or was He giving God's
meaning to the Scripture? When God gave that
law, did He not have a fuller meaning than
what men see just on the surface? Was there
not a spiritual interpretation? Was it not
pointing on to something, which when it came
was to supersede – I do not mean break, but
transcend – simply because higher, fuller,
deeper meaning was reached? Christ is God's
Sabbath. It is in Christ that God comes to
rest in all His works; His new creation. But
they said, "You must abide by the letter!"
We put it in that way to show the difference
between taking the letter and having the
Holy Spirit's illumination of the letter.
Life and the letter are often contrasted in
the Word. The letter killeth, the Spirit
maketh alive.
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