It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life….Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.
—John 6:63, 68
[God] hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
—2 Corinthians 3:6
“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. (Also see 1 Corinthians 16:4–5.) The Spirit always acts as a life-giving principle. Our Lord placed the flesh in opposition with the Spirit. He said, “The flesh profiteth nothing.” He means the flesh as the power in which the natural man or the unyielded believer seeks to serve God or to understand spiritual truths. Our Lord indicates the futile efforts of the flesh in the words, “profiteth nothing.”
This is also the reason for the weakness in the lives of many believers who read and know a great deal of Scripture. They do not know that it is the Spirit that quickens. The human understanding, however intelligent, however earnest, profits nothing. They think that in the Scriptures they have eternal life, but they know little of the living Christ as their life in the power of the Spirit.
The solution is very simple: we must refuse to deal with the written Word without the quickening Spirit. First, in a quiet act of worship, look to God to give and renew the workings of His Spirit within you. Then, in a quiet act of faith, yield yourself to the power that dwells in you. Then wait on Him so that not only the mind, but also the life in you, may be opened to receive the Word.
We must wait on the Holy Spirit within us to receive and reveal the words in His quickening power and work them into the very life of our life. Then we will know in truth that “it is the spirit that quickeneth.” We will see how divinely right it is that the words that are Spirit and life should be met in us by the Spirit and the life dwelling within. They alone will unfold their meaning, impart their substance, and give their divine strength and fullness to the Spirit and the life already within us.