There are in the victorious Christian not only the desires of the body but the desires of the soul. For may we not say that the sin of “the lust of the eye” is a sin of the “soulish” part of a man’s nature? It concerns his desire to acquire the things that he sees. To the natural man these things are riches to be obtained for himself. “He that hath an evil eye hasteth after riches” (Proverbs 28:22). The wise man here connects covetousness and “the evil eye.” Let us hear the words of the Master of wise men: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth consume and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also. The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Here is the clear choice. The desire to get the riches we see may become the lust of the eye, covetousness, the servant of mammon. But the Christian abiding in Christ has a “single eye,” that is, he has but one passion, to lay up treasure in heaven. He has not a doubtful mind as to whether he may grasp after this or that. He has but a single question, as his eye is single, and that is how may he glorify God in his getting? He makes use indeed of the mammon of unrighteousness, but not for self’s sake,—for the sake of Another.
The Most Subtle Sin
May we not call the most subtle sin of all, the sin of pride, a sin of the spirit? The victorious Christian still has the desire to accomplish things. Indeed this desire is intensified a thousandfold. To the natural man this desire centers wholly in self, whether he knows it or not. But one in whom the old self-life is dead cries with Paul, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). With the psalmist he sings: “My soul shall make her boast in Jehovah: The meek shall hear thereof, and be glad. O, magnify Jehovah with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:2, 3). “In God have we made our boast all the day long, and we will give thanks unto thy name forever” (Psalm 44:8). This sort of boasting leads not to self pride but to meekness. “Thus saith Jehovah, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me, that I am Jehovah, who exercise lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth” (Jeremiah 9:23).
All desires of life, then, for the Christian who abides in victory, center in Christ. “And whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17).
And conquest of temptation is not a negative matter. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and only the heart filled with that love which is Christ can know freedom from lust, covetousness, and pride. Back of these three outward sins, there is the inward nature which has departed from God. Perhaps no one in our day has pointed out more clearly the three great sins of omission than has Miss Louisa Vaughan, of China. She calls these the “Christian sins”: Failure to love the Lord our God with all our heart and strength and mind; failure to love one another as Christ loved us; failure to believe on Christ so that the works that he did and greater works than these should be wrought through us. These Christian sins, Miss Vaughan insists, must be confessed and cleansed in the blood of Jesus before the fulness of the Spirit can be enjoyed. To have these commandments fulfilled in us is the Victorious Life. And only when this root-condition of unlove and unbelief (which are really one, for “love believeth all things”) is dealt with shall we know freedom from lust and covetousness and pride.
HOW JESUS LIVED THE VICTORIOUS LIFE
In what sense was Jesus a man as we are? We read that he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. But have you ever asked, Of what comfort or strength is it to me that he was tempted in all points as I am, if he was without sin? It is just because I am not without sin that I fall before these temptations.
Is it true after all that the Lord Jesus was a man as I am?