Possible with God

And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. LUKE 18:27

The rich young ruler went away sorrowful. Jesus turned to His disciples and said how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom, and they were astonished: Who then can be saved? His answer is the text of one of the best addresses in Absolute Surrender, titled simply Impossible with Man, Possible with God. Murray loved this verse because it holds together the two things he believed every Christian must learn, usually slowly and often painfully. The first is that the Christian life is impossible. The second is that God does the impossible.

Two lessons

Murray put it plainly: “It often takes a long time to learn the first lesson, that in religion man can do nothing, that salvation is impossible to man.” And some people, he added, learn the first lesson and never learn the second. They come to the end of themselves and stay there.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God. 2 CORINTHIANS 3:5

He traced the way a believer typically travels. At first the young convert has no idea that the life is impossible. He is joyful and earnest and sure he can conquer, for God will help him. Then he fails where he did not expect to, and concludes that he was not watchful enough, and makes stronger resolutions, and fails again. Later he reaches a darker place. He begins to see that the life is impossible, but instead of turning to God he concludes that God never really expected it of him. Murray thought multitudes of Christians lived here — sincere, orthodox, resigned to a low life, doing their best and expecting little.

The way out is the third stage: the believer accepts the impossibility in its full truth and at the same time refuses to give up. He says, It is impossible for me, and yet it must be done. And in that tension he cries to God — and God answers.

The gateway of Romans 7

Murray found the same pattern in Romans 7 and 8. In the address O Wretched Man that I am! he describes the man at the end of Romans 7 as regenerate — he delights in the law of God after the inward man — and yet impotent: to will is present with him, but how to perform that which is good he finds not. He is therefore wretched. But he is also, Murray says, “a man on the borders of complete liberty.” His cry is the gateway into the eighth chapter, where the Holy Spirit is named again and again.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ROMANS 7:24–25

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. ROMANS 8:2

The point Murray pressed is that willing is not enough. A renewed heart that loves God’s law may still fail. What is needed is not a stronger will but a divine power working within the will. He set Romans 7 beside Philippians 2:13 — it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do — and said the difference is exactly this: in the one, a man wills and cannot perform; in the other, a man has learned that God works both.

Peter learned it

Murray’s favourite example was Peter. He spent three years in Christ’s school, Murray says, and never learned that it was impossible — until he had denied his Lord and gone out and wept bitterly. Peter’s confidence was sincere. He meant it when he said he would die with Christ. But his sincerity was the problem. He believed he could.

But he spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. MARK 14:31

In the address Peter’s Repentance, Murray traces how that bitter night became the turning point. The self-confident Peter had to be broken so that the Spirit-filled Peter could be born. After Pentecost, the same man who had denied Christ before a servant girl stood before the council and would not be silenced. What had been impossible with Peter had become possible with God.

Where the impossible meets us

This teaching reaches into every part of life. The command to love an enemy is impossible. The command to be anxious for nothing is impossible. The command to forgive seventy times seven is impossible. The call to be holy as God is holy is impossible. Murray would not soften any of them. He did not want us to lower the standard to what we could manage. He wanted us to discover that God meant every word and would do what He commanded.

Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee. JEREMIAH 32:17

This is the difference between Murray’s teaching and mere moral exhortation. The moralist says: this is hard, but try harder. Murray says: this is impossible, so stop trying in your own strength and trust God to work it.

A caution about stages

Murray tended to describe these experiences as stages in a sequence, with Romans 7 as a place one passes through and leaves behind on the way to Romans 8. Many faithful interpreters read Romans 7 differently. Some think Paul is describing his experience before conversion; others think he is describing the ongoing experience of every believer, who lives in Romans 7 and Romans 8 at once until the resurrection. The debate is old and serious.

The pastoral danger in a strict stage scheme is that the believer who still finds in himself the struggle of Romans 7 may conclude that he has never truly entered the Spirit-filled life, and may exhaust himself seeking a crossing he thinks he has missed. Murray’s central truth does not depend on settling the debate. Whether we pass through Romans 7 once or revisit it often, the answer is the same: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The impossible is still possible with God, and we still come to Him by confessing that we cannot.

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 CORINTHIANS 12:9

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name one command of Christ you have quietly decided is impossible for you, and therefore not really meant.

2. Ask where you are in Murray’s sequence: confident in your own strength, resigned to failure, or crying to God for what only He can do.

3. The next time you fail at something you resolved, resist the reflex to make a stronger resolution. Instead confess your inability and ask God to work in you.

4. Read Romans 7:14–8:4 aloud, slowly, and thank God for the answer in 7:25.

5. If you have exhausted yourself seeking a spiritual crossing you think you have missed, rest in 2 Corinthians 12:9.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have tried to live for You in my own strength and have failed more times than I can count.

I confess what I have been slow to learn: that without You it is impossible.

Teach me the second lesson too: that what is impossible with me is possible with You. Work in me both to will and to do.

When I fall, as Peter fell, do not let me despair, but bring me through weeping into Your strength. Amen.