Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments,
and His ways past tracing out!
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given,
to preach unto the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ.
The unsearchable riches of Christ. Having noted that this word, “riches,” is linked with a number of things in the New Testament, we have commenced a meditation upon some of these connections. The riches of His grace.
We have said a little about the basic character of grace, something about the works of grace and the works of law. And we have gone on to look at God’s work of grace: finishing His work for man before ever man comes into the picture at all, and then calling man into the work which God has finished. This is the grace of God.
Now let us pause for a few minutes and look at the operation of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of grace. You know that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of grace.
What does it mean that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of grace? The Holy Spirit is that, and the Holy Spirit comes to us as that. The Holy Spirit is freely given to us through faith as the Spirit of grace. Here is the grace of God.
We never earn or merit the Holy Spirit. He is freely given through faith. And although it may sound like repetition and labouring the point, I do want that we should be impressed with this: that the Holy Spirit, given freely, and as the Spirit of grace, brings to us from God all that grace means.
We have the Holy Spirit in possession. We have in Himself, in His very Person and presence, all that divine grace means. He is that Spirit of grace.
Now, with Him, we have the free action of God. The free action of God. The Bible begins in a very simple way, so simple that you hardly notice it. Something is written, set down; you read it, and you hardly notice what you have read.
The earth was waste and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And on you go again. What was there in that condition? The merit, the presence, and action of the Holy Spirit. The initiative was all with the Spirit of God.
Over against a state and conditions utterly contrary to Himself, this brooding was a very active thing, a very energetic thing, a very positive thing. In a word, the Spirit of God brooding, hovering over that state of things, was the presence of God to change the whole situation, because God wanted to change that. Just that: God wanted it changed, and He took the matter in hand.
There was not only lack of merit, but plenty of demerit. We do not know. It has been surmised, perhaps guessed—perhaps rightly guessed—that that state of things was due to some judgment which had come upon the creation. We need not speculate about that at all.
There was a state which was altogether contrary to the mind of God, and the state could do nothing about it for itself. The free action, just the free, voluntary, unearned initiative and action of the Spirit of God.
Now, dear friends, you and I are here, and there are multitudes in our position, as believers—born-again children of God—who would say, “We are a new creation in Christ.” How did it happen?
Did we go up into heaven to call Him down? Did we go into the deep to bring Him up? Did we go to the uttermost parts of the earth to find Him and persuade Him? We really did nothing about it.
We are where we are, and what we are, by an action altogether apart from anything that we did in the matter. He did it. He did it. We did nothing toward it. Indeed, our condition was all against God’s thought and God’s mind, and yet He took the initiative, and He did it by His Spirit.
That is the Spirit of grace, you see: taking things in hand, taking things in hand to make a beginning, to have things not as they were but as God intended and intends them to be.
Perhaps our salvation is taken too cheaply, taken too much for granted. It is those people who know best, and most, what a chaos they were, what darkness they were in, what disruption there was in their life—it is those people who know that best who know that their salvation is nothing that they did. It was the free action of the Spirit of grace.
That is all the Holy Spirit has brought to us. He has brought God to us. He is God, and God has brought God to us. But what does that mean? In other words, what are the riches of His grace?
First of all, as the Spirit of grace, coming as God to us, He comes as the power of God into our lives to do all that God wants done. Now, that is a simple statement, but He has come to do it.
There is no more of ourselves in this than there was in the first natural, material creation that brought about the change. Do not worry about that. It is the power of God that has taken this thing up.
Is it too commonplace to evoke no response in our hearts? Are we not more and more, and ever more, aware that whether that has been done, is being done, or has got to be done, it is by the power of God?
What power? What power! Goodness, what a power! Is it a power? Well, perhaps you have some experience to make it possible for you to say, “Yes, I know.” When we have got to move in this world where the Lord is neither known nor recognised nor acknowledged—apparently we are not wanted—you realise that darkness is an awful power.
Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the peoples. They are in darkness, and what can you do about it? You can talk. You can do all that is in your power. You cannot break this thing until the Spirit of power, as the Spirit of light, breaks in upon that realm.
It wants the power of God. Darkness is an awful power. If that is true on this side of the world, where there has been so much light given, so much truth given, and so much Christian tradition, go to the other side of the world. Go to those dark places.
You have only got to be in such a place, such a country as India, where the gospel has not touched, and you can feel the darkness. It is real. It is positively evil.
You may feel it in the traditionally Christian world. I will never forget my first visit to the city of Rome. Wanting to see the various things, I went to the Colosseum to see the place where the Christians were thrown to the lions, and I went here and there. Then I went into St. Peter’s Church.
And, you know, I could not stay. After a very short time, I had to go out. I thought, “Oh, physically ill!” A sense of awful death came on me physically. Glad to get out of the place.
There is an atmosphere of death, darkness to the spirit. But that is true there. As I say, you go to other parts of the world, and you can cut the darkness; it is so strong. It is a terrible thing.
When the Spirit of God, the Spirit of light, entered into this darkness which was on the face of the deep there, it was dealing with an awful power. It called for the exercise of the infinite power of God to break that reign of power.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
The word of His power. Oh, that our heart-cry and craving may be for a knowledge of that power in His Word more and more. Yes, if the smallest percentage of all His people knew the real power of God, something would happen. Something would happen. It would be a fresh act of God to speak.
That is why the Lord Jesus is called the Word. Because where He comes, something happens. Something happens. The devil was exposed when He was here and cried out, “I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.” Hell felt the impact of the Word. Men cried out in His presence.
But darkness is a terrible power. The disruption in our humanity is a terribly strong thing. We are every day, almost every moment of our lives, up against that breakup in the humanity which is ours: the breakdown of it, the disorder of it, the disintegration of it, the disruption of it.
We know that our humanity is a broken-down thing. All the time trying to pick it up, and build it up, and hold it up, we know it is a power—a terrible disorder, chaos in ourselves.
The Spirit of God came of His own accord, as the Spirit of power, to deal with what no other power in this universe could deal with—to change it. And that is where we are in the new creation. It is what the Spirit of God has undertaken to do with us.
And surely there is no one in this place tonight who would not echo the words of the apostle: “Kept by the power of God.” You know you would not be a Christian today; you would not be going on with the Lord; you would not be standing true, but for the keeping power of God in a world like this. There is such a power against what is of the Lord.
So this is the Spirit of grace, you see. He has come to take it over. The Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of grace, is the custodian of the divine purpose. He has taken responsibility for realising God’s end.
Oh, thank God for that. Knowing ourselves and the awful forces that there are in our nature, knowing the world, or something of it, and the awful forces that are abroad in this world, and knowing the devil, or something of his implacable hatred and opposition to what is of God—anything that is of God—we say, “Well, the only possibility is that God Almighty does it, sees to it.”
And that is the Spirit of grace who has come to take it up, to do it: the free action of the Holy Spirit.
We read John 16. The Lord says, “I am going away. You see Me now; you will see Me no more. If I go not away, the Comforter will not come; but if I go away, I will send Him unto you.” Then on and on: what He will do, what He will do, when He has come, when He has come, when He has come.
It is all so natural, all so effortless, you see. It is just going to be. He is coming, and He is going to do this and that. That is where there is to it: it is just that He is coming. “I am going to send Him.”
We read it. We know the content of the Word, but do we realise that this just means that the Holy Spirit is taking over all that Christ came to initiate, to carry it right through to its end? He is just going to do it. That is what He has come for as the Spirit of grace.
Grace means God doing all that God can do with us without asking for any merit or any payment. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of that grace, as the power of God. That is one of the riches: the riches of His power through grace.
Grace is many-sided in the New Testament, and one of the sides, or aspects, of grace is an energy. It is an energy. It is a power. It is a force in our lives.
There was a messenger of Satan given to buffet the apostle. And although these are not the words that the apostle used, this is what he meant: “I cried out to the Lord, ‘Take this away, because I cannot endure it. I shan’t be able to go on with this thing. I’ll not be able to get through. This is too much. This is too strong. This is too great a burden to be put upon my life.’”
And He said unto me, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” “My grace is sufficient; My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Grace is introduced as over against the conscious inability of the apostle to go on with what had been called for, what had been put, upon him.
His natural reaction was, “I just cannot. If I have got to have this, I shall not be able to.” He said, “I asked Him three times, ‘Take it away, then. Take it away, take it away. That is impossible.’” He said, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
Everything is possible to grace. It is a power, you see. It is a power, an energy in the life. We do know this in measure, do we not? We have said many times, “But for the grace of God, I should have acted very differently from what I did.” But for the grace of God. Grace sustained, grace kept, grace helped me.
The power of God is the Spirit of grace. But then, this is where the riches begin to open out. He is called the Spirit of wisdom—the Spirit of wisdom.
Later, we will have something more to say about wisdom, except for the moment: what does that mean? What is wisdom? To begin with, what is wisdom?
Wisdom is more than knowledge, you know. You can have a lot of knowledge and have no wisdom. And the people who have the most knowledge have often got the least wisdom. They are the most foolish people with all their knowledge.
What is wisdom? It is knowing how to do things, or how to do it—knowing how to do it.
That is a simple formula for wisdom. I remember, years ago, I heard or read a little incident of a firm of engineers who were given a contract to do a certain job. When it was done, they sent in their account—more or less general—and it was a very big account.
The people who had to pay the bill sent it back and said, “Look here, this is not good enough. We want you to explain this. Tell us how you make up this bill.”
The firm sent back: “Materials, so much. Time of work, so much.” They wrote out practical things like that, so much. And when those were added together, it did not come up to the whole account. They wrote underneath: “Knowing how to do it—the balance.”
Ah, well, knowing how to do it. It is quite a big part, you see, of the whole business, is it not? They might have had the materials, and they might have had the workmen, and they might have had all the other things; but not knowing how to do it, what could they have done at all? They would never have done it.
Wisdom is knowing how to do it. And here is the Spirit of grace in this way: grace knows how to do it. We have got to learn a lot about that, have we not?
Grace knows how to do it: to take up the problems, handle them and solve them, negotiate the situation to a successful, triumphant issue, handle the people concerned—how to handle them—and a thousand other things which require knowing how to do it.
Now, I do say that I am quite sure that you and I are many times brought to the place where we do not know how to do it or what to do. We just do not know. We have not got the wisdom for the situation. Perhaps you are in it now. I am.
But the Spirit of grace is the Spirit of wisdom. He knows how to do it. We have had some experience of that which we can say, “I never thought it would be done, and I never imagined it would be done like that.”
The way the Lord has done it, what the Lord has done, how He has done it—that never occurred to me. He did it in His way. And when you think of it, was there any second way? Could it have been done better? No. No.
The riches of His grace, the riches of His wisdom—grace in the wisdom of God. If you and I do believe in the grace of God brought to us by this Spirit of wisdom, then we ought never to despair of a situation.
He knows how to handle that, how to get us through that, how to resolve that. We do not know. And in the presence of this quandary, this problem, we cry out. It may be something so deep and so great that it is altogether beyond us.
And it may be, in time, but suddenly, in a time, you are saying, “Oh, the depth of the wisdom! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!”
The Spirit of grace is the Spirit of power. The Spirit of grace is the Spirit of wisdom. The Spirit of grace is the Spirit of life.
He is called the Spirit of life: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” By the Spirit, we are told, Jesus was raised from the dead—raised from the dead through the eternal Spirit, through the eternal Spirit of life.
We need not go back again for our analogy to the first creation: the operation of the brooding Spirit and the resultant life in the creation. So in the animate creation and in man, all the different kinds of life are the result of the presence of the Spirit. The new creation is like that.
But here again, it is not just a Christian truth, a Christian doctrine. The gift of eternal life is not just one of those things that we come into when we become Christians.
This resurrection life is a continuous, abiding, day-by-day reality in experience. It is put in all the tenses of the Christian life and salvation.
We were raised together with Him, that we should walk in newness of life. That is the past. We are now living in the good of that—that the life whereby Jesus conquered death should be manifested in our mortal flesh. That is present tense.
And this goes on to the future: the future revelation of life in its paramount, full, perfect expression. This resurrection life is not something only that happened when we were saved. It is a power at work in us continually now.
Well, you know, it is well-known teaching, but this is the Spirit of grace. Oh, thank God for the power of this divine life, which is demonstrating itself continually.
It seems to me—I have often said this in the past—that it seems more and more to be the case that the further we go on, the deeper this life has to go, because you are taken so much more deeply into death. Your experiences are going down, becoming deeper and greater than ever they have been before.
So, it seems, the power of His resurrection becomes greater all the way along. This is a very hopeful thing for us. Perhaps some of you feel today that you are touching bottom, and perhaps you are saying, “Well, this is the end.”
But do not forget that resurrection is a reality; it is not a theory. It is not just a doctrine; it is an experience, and a continuous experience.
And, dear friends, the great way we look in the Word of God is that, in the end, it is going to be up and not down.
I usually, when I go into a lift and there is a lift man there, have a little joke with him and say, “You are allowed to pull it up and down, are you?” He says, “Yes, sir.” I say, “How is it going to finish: up or down?”
There is something coming. We know how it is going. We know how it is going. It is an ascension life that we have.
And we may, from time to time, descend, but we are going through as with Him. As many times as we descend, the final movement is an ascension. This life is that way. It must seek out and find its own source.
Where it began, it will end: be in God, with God, unto God. This is the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of life.
I know, dear friends, that I have only said truths with which you are familiar, but sometimes the most familiar things, because of their familiarity, lose their power. And this is well to be reminded of.
Now, I have mentioned these three aspects of grace, and three great and primary riches of grace, and how rich they are. But I have much more to say. If the Lord will, we will take them further, because they really do take us into the depths.
So I will leave it there, but you have enough to get on with—good enough to get on with, this is what I have said this evening, or what I trust the Lord has said.
You will go away and let your hearts, as well as your minds, dwell upon them. You know, we miss a lot, dear friends, we miss a lot because we hear and we hear.
It would be of real value if, after tonight, you just recalled these things and went to the Lord very quietly and said, “Lord, this is what You say. This is the truth. I look to You to make that good.”
The Spirit of power, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of life—these are features of Your grace wrought in the Person of the Holy Spirit. This is the teaching of the Word of God. It must not stay in the Book; it must come into reality in my own life.
“Lord, I cannot argue to make this true. Make this real.” And so, more than ever.