The Spirit and the Word
SCRIPTURE: \’It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I
have spoken unto you are Spirit and are life. Lord, to whom shall we go? I Thou hast the
words of eternal life.\’–John 6: 63, 68.
\’The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.\’-2 Cor. 3: 6.
Our Blessed Lord had been speaking of Himself as the Bread of Life, and of His flesh and
blood as the meat and drink of eternal Life. To many of His disciples it was a hard saying,
which they could not understand. Jesus tells them that it is only when the Holy Spirit is come,
and they have Him, that His words will become clear to them. He says, \’It is the Spirit that
quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken unto you, they are
Spirit, and they are Life.\’
\’It is the Spirit that quickeneth,\’ in these words and the corresponding ones of Paul, \’ the Spirit
giveth life,\’ we have the nearest approach to what may be called a definition of the Spirit.
(Look up 1 Cor. 15: 45, \’a life-giving Spirit.\’) The Spirit always acts, in the first place,
whether in nature or grace, as a Life-giving principle. It is of the deepest importance to keep
firm hold on this. His work in the believer, of Sealing, Sanctifying, Enlightening, and
Strengthening, is all rooted in this: it is as He is known and honoured, and place given to
Him, as He is waited on as the Inner Life of the soul, that His other gracious workings can be
experienced. These are but the outgrowth of the Life; it is in the power of the Life within that
they can be enjoyed. \’It is the Spirit that quickeneth.\’
In contrast to the Spirit our Lord places the flesh. He says, \’the flesh profiteth nothing.\’ He is
not speaking of the flesh as the fountain of sin, but in its religious aspect, as it is the power in
which the natural man, or even the believer who does not fully yield to the Spirit, seeks to
serve God, or to know and possess Divine things. The futile character of all its efforts our
Lord indicates in the words, \’profiteth nothing;\’ they are not sufficient, they avail not to reach
the Spiritual reality, the Divine things themselves. Paul means the same when he contrasts
with the Spirit, the letter that killeth. The whole Dispensation of the Law was but a
dispensation of the letter and the flesh. Though it had a certain glory, and Israel\’s privileges
were very great, yet, as Paul says, \’Even that which was made glorious had no glory in this
respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.\’
Even Christ Himself, as long as He was in the flesh, and until, in the rending of the veil of
His flesh, the dispensation of the Spirit took the place of that of the flesh, could not by His
words effect in His disciples what He desired. \’It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing!
PRAYER : How are you serving the Lord? Are you relying on the Holy Spirit and His
might? Is the flesh weighing you down or some of your team members? Do you have a
team? If the answer is no, then how can you function without the rest of the body? Are
allowing the Holy Spirit to come out of you?