“…you are an epistle (letter) of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.” 2 Corinthians 3:3
In the book of Isaiah, we find the Lord declaring: “I am the Lord, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images (or idols).” (42:8) The Lord declares these truths over and over again in the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus in the New Testament applying them by His words, works, and witness. Why is this so important to grasp? It is because to believe otherwise, and to attribute to something of this creation that which only has its origin and essence in God, is a lie. It is not the truth.
In the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Roman believers, he wrote: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.” (Rom. 3:10, 11) The Lord Jesus spoke of this matter in these words: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” (Jn. 6:63) The application of these truths to the sinner, and the believer, is to see and live by the fact that “God’s work, done in God’s way, will never lack God’s supply.” Another Christian author put it like this: “Every virtue I possess, and every victory won, and every thought of holiness, are God’s and God’s alone.” What do these truths mean in the Christian’s walk with Christ, and service to the King?
First and foremost, according to the truths of the Gospel, the sinner, because of the impossibility of him saving himself by any and every device of man, is absolutely shut up to God to save him. There is absolutely no resource, capacity, power to deliver and change, or solution, in and of sinful man, to deal with his sins before God, their forgiveness, them being blotted out forever, and him washed clean of their power, influence, even effect, even being washed whiter than snow, EXCEPT, by the intervention and power of God. This is why it is safe to say that nothing of true Christianity, faith in God, and surrender to Christ, is possible without the intervention of a gracious and loving God. Man, born in his spiritual blindness cannot see, nor can he rise above the chains of his sins which hold him prey. It is only when the Savior comes, by the moving of the Spirit in the life, to draw out the lost soul to Him, that the chains begin to rattle, and there is born a desire in the heart of the lost soul, a desire and hope given by the living God, that there is a solution by which God will finish the work He begins in the life. That solution is found only in one place, in one Person, and one Power, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of all men, but actually only those who will respond to the overtures of the Spirit working in the heart to bring him to repentance and faith, and thus to life.
When a lost sinner is born of the Spirit of God, having repented of his sins by the grace of God, the Divine Composer of Letters pulls out His writing device, whether pen or stylus, and begins to put down indelibly on eternal parchment, or paper, as in stone, the gracious purpose, works, and testimony of the living God in the saved soul. From that blessed moment, when old things are passed away, and all has become new in Christ, the Divine record proceeds. On earth, the testimony of the great truths of God in Christ, and Christ in the believer by the Spirit, is revealed, not only by words, and deeds, but by “…the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” (2 Cor. 2:14) In other words the letter of God is Christ’s life revealed in us.
Dear Father, Fill us with Christ. In Jesus’ name, Amen.