An Open Letter
regarding
"DEEPER
LIFE"
Miles
J. Stanford
6 October 1995
Dear brother John Whitcomb:
It is heartwarming to be able to sit down and
have a quiet correspondence talk with you in a completely positive manner.
Much of my writing these days necessitates a plethora of the polemic.
Not being a listener of tapes, mine bride takes
care of that end of things. In that you are one of her favorite speakers,
your message on Colossians 3:1-4 was recommended to me. I was
edified by your arrow-straight doctrine concerning that vital portion of the
Word of truth.
For the past 50 years I have had
the privilege of full-time ministry to believers concerning spiritual
growth. If I may, let me share some personal observations regarding
"deeper life", and you can draw your own conclusions.
The original Plymouth Brethren
leaders held the growth truths (identification and position) scripturally.
The majority of all others who minister identification include error, and/or
misapply the truth. Many of these present only the positive aspects,
eliminating the essential negative either through ignorance, or fear of
jeopardizing their ministry.
With very few exceptions,
Christians, including leaders in the sound Bible churches (IFCA, etc.),
understand little or nothing of their identification with and position in
Christ. They know and love the Lord, seek to serve Him, and are waiting
for the Rapture. When they are aware of sinning, they confess, and seek to
improve--with His help, of course.
They want to sin less, and to be
pure and consistent in their walk, and to learn to love Him more fully.
Sometimes they seek the Lord's help in these matters, but for the most part they
want everything to go their way, and to experience the Lord's enabling when they
feel that there is need for it.
The only life that they are
aware of is the one they have always had, but now they consider it to be
Christian. They are unaware that there are two Adams involved, and for
them Romans 5,6, and 7 might as well not be in their Bible.
If they encounter a deeper life
meeting, book, or tape, and discover the truths of Colossians 3:1-4, for
instance, it sounds just great to them--the good news of the Good News.
When they are informed that they were crucified and that now their life is
hidden with Christ in God, that is fine too. And since they are now free
from the power of sin and can set their affection on things above, that is even
better.
Therefore, many mount the steps
of that glorious deeper life bandwagon, only to have the wheels fall off down
the block away. And that not because of any doctrinal error--they have
just heard and responded to the scriptural truth of identification. But
their failure often results in frustration and disillusionment: "It didn't
work for me."
The problem here is not what
they know but don't respond to, and do. The problem is what they do not
know--what has been neglected.
The Plymouth Brethren movement,
repository of identification and dispensational truth, is now dead while it yet
liveth--because an aspect of truth has been practically ignored. The
Keswick movement is dead while it yet exists, because it, too, passed over a
certain aspect of truth. And just what might that be? The
experience of the Cross in the life of the believer.
First of all, the Holy Spirit,
according to His time and purpose for the individual, convicts him (or her)
concerning his sins, in order for him to realize his need and come to the
Saviour for forgiveness, for redemption.
It is also the Holy Spirit,
according to His time and purpose for the individual, who convicts the believer
concerning himself as a sinner, in order to bring him to the One who is
his Life, for his sanctification and spiritual growth.
The equally important
conviction--the awareness of his sinful self--sets him on the weary path of
struggling to rectify, to control, or to avoid that sinful, inner Adamic life
and nature. Enter Romans 7.
This hopeless struggle is
designed to bring him to the place of utter defeat, until his cry becomes,
"O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?" (Romans 7:24). It is not until he gives up trying to keep the
law in order to govern self, that he can intelligently exclaim, "I thank
God through Jesus Christ" (vs. 25).
He knows now that self is so
incorrigibly sinful that it could not be forgiven, but had to be taken into
judgment by the crucifixion (Romans 8:3). Now Romans 6 becomes his haven
of rest. He begins to count upon the fact that the indwelling old man was
positionally crucified in Christ on the Cross (Romans 6:6). He learns to
reckon instead of struggle, to count upon the fact that he died to sin as
personified in his indwelling Adamic life (Romans 6:11).
Upon the basis of the believer's
faith and reckoning, the Holy Spirit deals with the old man, applying progressively
the finished work of the Cross. This brings increased experiential liberty
from the dominion and power of the old Adamic man.
In time he is more free to turn
his attention to the One in glory who is his Christian Life. He begins to
count upon the second half of Romans 6: 11, i.e., reckon yourself to be
"alive unto God in Jesus Christ." He is learning something of
the benefits of Colossians 3:1-4.
Without the Holy Spirit's
conviction of the depravity and power of self, the believer will not resort
to reckoning upon the finished work of the Cross. His attempt to center
upon Christ via Colossians 3 will prove to be futile. He will not only be
unable to, but for the most part he won't even want to, center upon Christ in
glory. Self-centeredness nullifies Christ-centeredness.
For him, self will be like the
wife who said to her husband, "If you ever leave me, I'm going with
you!" Being apprised of truth objectively, and entering into that
truth subjectively, are two vastly different things.
Adamic self, like Satan, submits
only to that which has already been accomplished concerning it at Calvary.
The Holy Spirit applies that positional destruction (inoperability through
separation) via the believer's reckoning upon that fact. Both
justification and sanctification are matters of faith.
But it is not the
"faith" of the charismatic movement: "Believe it, and you have
it." Faith in, reckoning upon, the truth is coupled with reliance
upon the Spirit to make it experiential. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye
shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." " ... changed into the
same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord"
(Galatians 5:19; 2 Corinthians 3:18).
There are many today who pick up
on identification truth without the necessary conviction regarding self, and its
Cross-repudiation. The demon-deliverance people (such as Anderson and
Dickason) point to the believer's position in Christ, but do not have the
scriptural answer to indwelling Adam.
They maintain that the old man
has been eradicated, and no longer exists. In place of that element they
substitute Satan and his demons. For them it is not even "Satan made
me do it"; but rather, "Satan and the demons did it!" Cast
them out, and you are free for Colossians 3! In the meantime, good ol'
self remains at liberty as spoiler.
Others take on identification in
order to bolster a failing ministry, or to enhance a growing one. David
Wilkerson adds identification to his
charismatic cupboard already stocked with tongues, healing, demon-deliverance,
et al. Bill Gothard has included identification along with his law and
demonism. But identification truth is incompatible with, and nullified by,
these errors.
Ian Thomas, in his ministry of
identification truth, is welcomed everywhere. This is accomplished by
emphasizing the positive, while by-passing the necessary negative. The
work of the Cross in the life of the believer is skirted. Hence self
remains the ruling factor, regardless of how well Romans 6 and Colossians 3 are
presented and advocated.
It is quite another story when
the Cross and the daily crucifixion of the self-life are presented as the basis
for centering upon Christ above. Who, especially in this doctrine-less,
self-centered day, will tolerate hearing of death to cherished self?
Only those who have become
Spirit-convicted concerning the old man for what it is, will be able to hear,
and want to hear, the message of the daily death of the Cross. The
Cross/Christ-centered message reduces one's "hearing" audience down to
about two percent in any given "deeper life" convention, seminar, or
church meeting.
Paul, from whom alone in all
Scripture the doctrine of identification and position can be discovered and
learned, maintained a two-fold emphasis. The Cross, and the Christ.
"For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and
Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). William Kelly complies:
All depends upon this--the
simplicity with which my soul received the great truth that, as to all that I
am, it was judged and condemned on the Cross--not forgiven (Romans 8:3).
Now there is a new man
before the Father, and a new Man before me--Christ ascended; and I am entitled
to say, that is the One in whom I stand before the Father. We are now by
grace in Another, even in the ascended and glorified Lord Jesus Christ, in
order to give us our position in the very presence of the Father.
Our procedure through the years
has been to share the identification truths primarily with those who are
earnestly seeking to be freed from the dominion of sin and self, so as to be at
liberty to center and rest in Christ as their very Life. None but the
hungry heart!
A few closing thoughts from
others, who are able to say it much better than I:
There are two things that
must be taken into account in communicating truth, especially deeper
truth. Not merely should there be
certainty that it is the truth from God, but it must be suited truth to those
with whom you would share.
They may need it all, but
they may not be yet in condition to receive it; and the more precious the
truth, the greater the injury, in a certain sense, if it is presented to those
who are not in a state to profit by it. --William Kelly
If the difference between
"Christ dying for us," and "our dying with
Him," has not been recognized, acknowledged, and counted upon, it may
safely be affirmed that the old man is still the dominating factor in the
life.
I have found it to be very
difficult, and I perceive it in others, to realize practically as an absolute
fact that my old man is gone in the judgment of the Cross from the eye of God.
If we accept this simply we
should neither look for good or evil from that which has been judicially
crucified; and then, as this is realized and counted upon, the Lord Jesus
would be our entire and consistent Object and occupation; the Spirit of Christ
would lead to nothing else. --J.B.Stoney
There can be no true
experience of "dying daily" where there is no intelligent
realization of having previously, by the Cross, died definitely. --B. McCall
Barbour
Are we willing to put our
hearts on God's sword, the Cross? This is the price that must be paid
for growth and fruitfulness. We may hedge, cringe, protest, hide, talk
back, or seek to vindicate ourselves. We may escape the Cross if we will, but
we will not know the "power of His resurrection" until the grain of
wheat falls into the ground and dies. --R.D. Kilgour
Many who are more
enthusiastic about the aspect of the Gospel which proclaims the Saviour's
being offered for us, are more resentful when the Gospel message is
pressed on the issue of the need for an inward work of the Cross, setting
aside all that is of Adam and not of Christ. They love the hymns and
Gospel message concerning the Saviour's bearing the judgment of our sins,
but are not prepared to accept the need for that judgment to be applied to the
fleshly Adam within. --H. Farraday
Yours for His best, dear
brother.
Resting in Him,
Miles