Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

If we did not take into account the power of the Holy Spirit, we would despair. The natural man cannot understand that his role is finished, that the new birth is an absolutely new life, in which all our natural opinions will have ceased. The soulish and the spiritual are so mixed up even in advanced believers, that only the Holy Spirit is able to divide them. But a division must come. In God’s house there is no room for anything of man. Any so-called goodness of man, his religious disposition and his seemingly unselfish efforts are all a big deception. If God’s rights are to be of account, then all our rights, however skillfully covered, have to come to an end.

This takes us to Moses. He stands before us as a prophet. How zealous he was for the rights of God! God showed him His house on the mountain. But at the foot of the mountain he erected an altar and sacrificed. By doing so he respected the rights of God. His altar is nothing else but the explanation that the way to God’s mountain (and therefore to God’s house) is via the Cross of Calvary. Lightning and thunder surrounded the mountain. It was so terrible, that even Moses trembled. Why? Because no one can come close to God and serve Him except he whom God has called. God takes care that the mountain is fenced off, that nothing may come close to Him, that access to Him is only through the power of the Blood.

We say all of this in view of the rights of God. There is a burden on our hearts to make clear that God’s house is only really God’s house if it is filled by Him alone. We see this in the tabernacle. Because of the veil it is separated from everything outside. Inside, however, everything speaks through the large altar of the rights of God, the right God has over all life, of His sole and exclusive right.

When, after Solomon, the worship of God began to waiver, when other gods were worshipped, prophetic service amongst the people increased. Why? We have said before that the prophets stood for God’s rights in a special way. When therefore a prophet raised his voice in the old covenant, we know that something was not in order, that God was working to win back that which was lost, to save the spiritual from being covered up by formalism and tradition. This stepping in for God marks Elijah in a special way. When he says: “As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand,” it means: The Lord and I are one; the Lord stands on my side because I stand on His side; your attitude towards me reflects your attitude towards the Lord. And all this happens in view of winning back the rights of God. Now Elijah was not an important personality. We judge him wrongly if we ascribe him a personality which he did not have. The Lord shows him to us when he was discouraged, sitting under the juniper tree:
“But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers’”  (1 Kings 19:4).

And James confirms this, by saying: “Elijah was a man of like nature with us” (James 5:17). But the Lord has chosen him. His calling has to do with the rights of God. Because he stood on God’s side, God stands with him. The Lord defends His honor in His prophet. He seeks to safeguard His rights in those that are His messengers. For example, consider Elijah and the widow of Zarephath.

“And the word of the Lord came unto him (Elijah), saying, “Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, “Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, “Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.” And she said, “As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” And Elijah said unto her, “Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.” And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the Word of the Lord, which He spake by Elijah” (1 Kings 17:8-16).

Now when Elijah comes to the widow, she has just enough flour and oil for one cake, but Elijah tells her: “First make me something to eat.”  This looks like selfishness. But the Lord and he are one. Is the widow ready to recognize this? Is she willing to honour the Lord in His prophet? Should God have His right at the peril of herself possessing nothing any more? The woman obeys. What a victory! It is the recognition of the rights of God that leads to the jar of flour not becoming empty and the cruse of oil not drying up. The recognition of the rights of God has opened the door to wonderful experiences. Not that her faith did not have to go through depths. That happened when her son died. Then she could see life out of death, the power of resurrection, something which not everyone has the privilege to see. She had recognized God’s rights and had given Him the first place. Then the Lord manifests the power of resurrection.

“And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, “What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?” And he said unto her, “Give me thy son.” And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord, and said, “O Lord my God, hast Thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?” And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, “O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again.” And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, ‘See, thy son liveth’” (1 Kings 17:17-23).

Let us see this in the light of the house of God. The house of God is the place where He is everything, where the Lord has been recognized in the power of His resurrection, where we come together as living stones, in whom heavenly life has become a reality.

Let us not think that we will be spared difficulties. How Moses suffered! How Elijah was persecuted! The presence of the Lord does not mean that we will be spared suffering. On the contrary. We will be slandered, denied and persecuted. We will be abandoned and hated. We will not be spared this. This does not mean that the presence of God is not with us. We find it in the life of the Lord in us. We find it in the ability to be calm. We find it in the peace and joy in the midst of all storms and tribulations. That is enough. That is worth more than all recognition and outward confirmation. But when the Lord comes, we will appear with Him, and because we have sought His rights and have given Him His rights, we will exult and rejoice in the universal reign of our Lord, Who will be “The Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (Rev. 17:14).

[Shammu]

Chapter 7 - The Way to God’s Fulness

The Epistle to the Colossians is a wonderful unveiling of the fulness of God in Christ, while in the Epistle to the Ephesians we see the church as the fulness of Him Who fills all in all.

“In Whom (in Christ) we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature: for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.  And He is the Head of the body, the church: Who is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of His Cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” (Col. 1:14-20).

“For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, Which is the head of all principality and power: in Whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, Who hath raised Him from the dead” (Col. 2:9-12).

“Having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to set at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him That filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:18-23; ASV).

It is understandable that it is important for us to know the fulness God has purposed for us, but we must not overlook the other side of the coin, that God wants us to be His fulness. Paul speaks of an inheritance of Christ in the saints (Eph. 1:11,18). The Lord has something in us that gives Him pleasure, that which for Him is fulness. The question is just how this will be perfected in us, and whether there are conditions that have to be recognized and met if the fulness of Jesus Christ is to be realized in us.

As an example, in 2 Kings 2:1 and 2, we see how this condition is completely fulfilled in Elisha:

“And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel.”

Elisha cannot be dissuaded or discouraged from being zealous, but follows his master Elijah, until he becomes witness of his wonderful ascension. This is what God must have in us to build on. There must be in us something of the zeal that inspired Elisha. God does not look for strength in us. He does not look for a certain ability. He simply looks for the willingness to be led and filled by Him with the power of His resurrection, through which the testimony of Jesus Christ in us becomes a reality.

God puts this zeal to the test. He must take us to the point of realizing whether we are serious or not, whether in regard to His fulness it is only a desire on our side, maybe a big desire, but still only a desire, not a willingness to pay any price.

Have we noted that in the chapter mentioned it significantly says: “Elijah went with Elisha”? This shows us that the Lord goes with us when our hearts are set on Him, and that He often waits a long time for us to be ready to move on. Is it not so that He often says to us: “This is My way. Are you ready to go that way? Good—prove it.” If we are truly ready and prove this by taking the first step, He then goes with us and very soon we may walk with Him. But the Lord does not urge us to move on. He does not force us to go forward. He waits until we are ready.

The way that Elijah and Elisha walked together is very meaningful. We speak to those whose eyes of their hearts have been opened, who have received a glimpse of spiritual things. What does it mean to see that the starting point of the road was Gilgal?

We know Gilgal. It is the place where the new generation was circumcised; the place where the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. What does this mean?

It means the putting aside of a life in the flesh. Speaking figuratively, it is about the separating work of the Cross. Here all personal interests have come to an end. Every personal standpoint, all holding fast to the ‘I’ is finished.

If it is a question of God and the things of God, there can be no other starting point than Gilgal. Only where the flesh has been judged and the old man put into the grave, can God turn to us and make us co-workers in His plan.

This is easier said than done. This sounds very ‘edifying’. But it costs a lot. It costs that which we are. It costs our life.

Now, let us say again that it is not written for nothing: “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me”  (Luke 9:23; ASV). If we want to be His instruments, if we want to be available for Him, so that He can have His rights through us, then let us come over to His side. Let us give up all our rights. This is the first step towards heavenly fulness.

What do we understand by the reproach of Egypt? One can talk about heavenly things, and yet still live and act in the flesh. It is the reproach of the world that justifiably shakes its head about many a ‘Christian’ who becomes a stumbling block when holy talk is not followed by deeds. Gilgal means: the reality of heavenly things. And for us too, there can be no testimony without the reality of the life to which we are called to testify.

We should not be annoyed that we always come back to the same starting point for all God’s work in us. What is the point if we continue without having laid a good foundation? The good foundation is Christ. As long as we have not grown together with the Crucified in the likeness of His dying, we can know nothing of a life of resurrection. Where there has been no resurrection, there may be some knowledge, but no life. There may be some understanding, but no power. Therefore, let us bear in mind that God’s starting point is Gilgal. From Gilgal we may take the first step towards godly fulness.

[Shammu]

Chapter 8 - Bethel – God’s House

The way from Gilgal leads to Bethel. From Gilgal alone! Because Bethel is the house of God. We only get to the house of God through the Cross.

What do we mean by the house of God?

The expression ‘houses of God’ has created much confusion. It has given rise to the idea of holy ground, that is, places that are holier than others. Have you noticed that there is no comparative for the word ‘holy’? We can say that someone is prettier in comparison to somebody else. We cannot say, however, that someone is holier in comparison to someone else. There are no degrees of holiness. That which belongs to God is holy. That which does not fully belong to God is not holy. Whether we are in reality, as the Word says, "holy and beloved," depends on whether we belong to God in reality or not. That is why the church of Jesus Christ is a holy Temple in the Lord, because He Himself lives in His Own people, because they are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph. 2:21,22). And there is no other habitation of God. “The Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands” (Acts 7:48). God lives in the hearts of those that have accepted Christ, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

When we speak of the house of God, we speak of the church of Jesus Christ, of His holy Temple, nothing earthly, but something heavenly. The house of God is connected to heavenly fulness. Those that have become living stones have come to know this experientially. They know it on the basis of the love that binds them together on the basis of the life that fills them all. In Hebrews 12:22 and 23 we read: “Ye are come to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.” That is the church. It is a heavenly assembly. It is an assembly of those who have been born again. And as long as she is on this earth, she is in reality a representative of heavenly things, through whom the Lord wants to reveal Himself to the world. If there is to be a practical expression of the heavenly reality that fills the church, then it is necessary that all believers come to a living realization of the unity of all members of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only together do we arrive at the fulness of God. The fulness is given to us in as far as we, the many, are one body. That is why every division means loss to us and for the time being also loss to the Lord.

In the Old Testament no one was allowed to come to the temple with empty hands. What do we have, we who are His temple? Nothing else but Himself. Only that which is of Christ is worthy to be presented, because our unity is only based on that which is of Christ.

Let us look at the house of God from different angles. Firstly from the point of view of fellowship. We have already spoken about it. Fellowship in Jesus Christ is what makes the church so wonderful. It is only through fellowship that the church is formed. Who could have brought together into one new man those who are so different according to nationality, social standing and gender? That which came into being through the Cross is so wonderful, so unfathomably great, that all human efforts to create fellowship have remained poor, bungled attempts. For exactly this reason the devil tries to destroy this fellowship. The devil does not want that which Christ has brought about to become visible. The devil creates divisions, denominations and even uses the truth, divided into truths, just so that the unity does not become visible, and that the power that is in unity does not become effective.

Instead of fellowship we could also say love, because this is the true essence of fellowship. Love is the practical value of fellowship.

Beside that there is life. The house of God is the expression of the life of God. Wherever there is fellowship in Christ, fellowship of love, there we have a wonderful fellowship of life, life as an indivisible life, from which we cannot withdraw ourselves, from which we cannot separate ourselves without immediately sensing the powers of death. There is such oneness in this life that James says: “Is any among you sick? Let Him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil... and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick” (James 5:13-15). Here we see the church. We do not only see her in the representation of the elders. We see her in her totality, because if “one member suffers, all the members suffer with it” (1 Cor. 12:26). The purpose for the members is to have life. The fulness of life that is in the Head is available for the members. The Holy Spirit will transmit it to them. They may come and as members of a body intervene for one another, acting together, so that the whole body in wonderful growth becomes an expression of the fulness, given to our Head for us all.

The third angle from which we want to look at the House of God is light.  Bethel was the place where Jacob’s ladder stood. It stood under an open heaven. This is an indication of revelation, of light from above. Light that illumines us inwardly, to see the things of God in the light of God. Therefore we can say that the house of God is there where God reveals Himself. Where has God revealed Himself more gloriously than in the Lord Jesus Christ! While He was on earth, He was the temple of God. As we are now sent by Him, we may be His temple, a living temple, full of the knowledge of God and full of His love.

Let us state one more time that the way to Bethel starts at Gilgal. One cannot come to the House of God and that which is heavenly cannot come into being as long as the earthly is not put off and all flesh is judged. However, where this has taken place, the road leads on to Bethel.  It leads us to the House of God. It leads us to where we have fellowship in life, in love and in light.

[Shammu]

Chapter 9 - The Victory Over the Powers of Darkness

Reading: 2 Kings 2:1-15.

"And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, “Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel,” And Elisha said unto him, “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, “Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day?” And he said, “Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.” And Elijah said unto him, “Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho.” And he said, “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” So they came to Jericho. And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, “Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day?” And he answered, “Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.” And Elijah said unto him, “Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan.” And he said, “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” And they two went on. And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off: and they two stood by Jordan.  And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground.

"And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee.”  And Elisha said, “I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.” And he said, “Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.” And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.  And Elisha saw it, and he cried, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.” And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces.

"He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan; and he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over. And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, “The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.” And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.”

From Bethel the road leads to Jericho

We expect Jericho to come before Bethel. But once we have recognized the meaning of Jericho, we will see that the Holy Spirit led Elijah and Elisha in the right order, that we can get to Jericho only after having been in Bethel.

What is the meaning of Jericho? With the conquering of Jericho, Israel had conquered the whole country so to say, because Jericho was on the threshold of the Promised Land, and the battle for Jericho was, in a representative way, a battle for the whole country. Because of the seven nations that inhabited Canaan, Israel had to march around Jericho seven times. When therefore, on the seventh day, after having marched around Jericho seven times, Jericho fell, everything that stood as an enemy against Israel fell. As they had taken Jericho, they were to take everything else.

Canaan is a picture of the heavenly places. The fulness of the country points to our fulness in Christ. We have been “blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3). But the enemy stands in our way. He wants to hinder us from taking possession of our riches. God had assured Israel: “I have given you the land” (Deut. 8:10; 9:23). It therefore belonged to them. It belonged to them on the basis of the Word that God had spoken. And yet it is no contradiction that they had to fight in order to take possession of it, because their battle was, rightly seen, not a human battle. The walls of Jericho fell without fighting.  In faith Israel had fought for Jericho. The fall of the wall was a victory of faith.

This should be our position towards the hostile powers of wickedness that want to prevent us from taking possession of our heavenly blessing.  If Jericho is a picture of the powers of darkness that we meet in the heavenlies, which stand between us and our blessings in the heavenlies, then we see how needful it is that Bethel comes before Jericho, because the fight against the powers of evil in the heavenly regions cannot be the battle of individuals. Individuals will not overcome the powers of darkness. To overcome them requires the fellowship of the saints. Through the ages some have thought themselves strong enough to stand up against the powers of darkness alone, and they have suffered badly. This is the reason that the devil finds it so important to isolate us.  If he succeeds in this, then he has a chance to overcome us. Therefore he brings so many divisions among the saints.

[Shammu]

From Bethel the road leads to Jericho. The church, placed in the heavenlies is charged with the battle, a battle not against flesh and blood, but against the forces of wickedness in the heavenly regions. This is a battle that is fought now. At present the saints are called to attain to the fulness of Christ, to stand, filled with Him, in His victory.

Let us stand together! Let us be one in spirit! Let us be one for the purpose of the battle with which we have been charged, because as long as divisions exist, as long as the flesh can assert itself, it will be difficult to keep the ground.

It is normally assumed that Elijah went to heaven in a chariot of fire. This does not correspond with the facts. In the first verse of the second chapter of 2 Kings we are expressly told that the Lord was going to take him to heaven in a whirlwind. And that is exactly how he went.

But what do we do with the chariots and riders? They have a special and very important meaning. Do we not still see them standing with Elisha in chapter six? Here he is in danger, but knows that chariots and riders surround him. How frightened his servant is in the light of the seriousness of the situation! But when his eyes are opened, he sees the mountain full of chariots and horses.

“And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, a host with horses and chariots was round about the city. And his servant said unto him, “Alas, my master! how shall we do?” And he answered, “Fear not: for they that are with us are more than they that are with them.” And Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes, that he may see.” And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain, was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15-17).

In chapter thirteen we find Elisha on his deathbed. The king who approaches him, however, senses a power surrounding the one dying. Therefore he exclaims: “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” (verse 14). They still surround him, because they are God’s gift to His servant. They represent the power in which Elisha dared to stand up against the powers of darkness. Chariots and horsemen mean victory. As the powers of darkness were targeted against God’s servant, God had surrounded him with chariots and horsemen which caused the defeat of the powers of darkness.

We know that Elisha represents the assembly in the power of His resurrection. He is connected to his master whom he saw ascending to heaven, from whom he received a double portion to do greater works than him. The same with the church. The Lord has said: “Greater works than these shall he (you) do; because I go unto the Father” (John 14:12). With the coming of the Holy Spirit the chariots of Israel and its horsemen have, metaphorically speaking, returned. That means that the victory has come to us. We stand in victory over the enemy. Even if we are still in the battle, we know that the victory has already been won. Therefore we do not fight to win; we fight in victory, because we stand in victory. Our fight is nothing else but a holding fast in trust to Him Who has said: “I have given you the land,” and whose Word confirms to us that He has blessed us with all blessings in the heavenlies.

We hear no sound of battle at Jericho. We see no use of fleshly powers. Jericho is encircled, persistently, full of faith, and then in the motion the trumpets announce the victory. Is not all our trying hard a sign that we still doubt that the victory has been given to us, that we think we still have to obtain it? It is all a matter of faith, a matter of trust, our holding fast to His Word. John says: “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).

Let us consider something important. At the end of the road lies the Jordan. That is both the end of Elijah’s life and the beginning of the public ministry of Elisha. Because of this the Jordan receives a special meaning for both of them. Before Elijah can ascend, he has to cross the Jordan. The Jordan must first be overcome. Elijah took his mantle and folded it. Figuratively speaking he gathers together all power and with this gathering of his powers he divides the Jordan. Figuratively he overcomes death. Elijah breaks through that which divides the heavenly from the earthly. He breaks the enormous obstacle that can only be broken in the power of the life of God: death. Elijah has to break the power of death before he can enter heavenly fulness. The crossing of the Jordan was, figuratively speaking, the victory over death. All this points to our Lord Jesus Christ. All this takes us to the Letter to the Ephesians: “He has made us alive together with Him, and raised us up together and seated us together in the heavenlies” (Eph. 2:5,6). And further: “...that ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion”  (Eph. 1:19-21).

[Shammu]

This is our position now. Because Christ holds the victory over death in His hands. In Him death has been overcome. “I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev. 1:18). This means: “I have all power over death.”   This is what must become clear to us through Elijah. His last work here on earth was, figuratively speaking, the overcoming of the power of death. Through the parting of the water he tore up death, so to speak. He went through death as through dry land. After the victory over the power of death, however, he ascended in a whirlwind to glory.

Let us turn to Elisha, and we will see that he is to come into the same position: the position of a death-overcoming life on this earth. Elisha now possesses the mantle of Elijah, in whom we have the symbol that the power of death has been broken. This must become real to him through faith. Elisha is intended to be a witness and a testimony of the power of the resurrection.

Let us not overlook that “the exceeding greatness of His power” is only prepared for those “who believe” and given to them only (Eph. 1:19).

Elisha’s heart was set on receiving a double portion of the spirit of his master. When Elijah heard the request, he hesitated. And his answer is: “Thou hast asked a hard thing.” Oh, faith always asks for the impossible. The true nature of faith consists in always being on the lookout for something that is impossible on natural grounds. From the start Elisha acts on the basis of faith. Everywhere the sons of the prophets had tried to shake his faith. But his heart was steadfast. He knew what he wanted. He did not let go until Elijah said: “If thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee.” He followed him.  He followed his master until the end. And when he saw him ascend, he cried out: “My father, my father...”; in other words: “Here I am, and I expect to receive what you have promised me.”

Do we see what faith is about? Faith looks into the surpassing greatness of His power that is available to us “who believe”.

In this connection let us point to something that is not less important. The Lord wants the power of His Spirit in His people to be seen. If this is to happen, then Gilgal must first have done its work. If not, the danger exists that yet again our self becomes visible and that personal interests come in. When Elijah asked: “Ask what I shall do for thee.” Elisha did not ask for a double portion of his power, but a double portion of his spirit. What are we striving for? For strength and power? Or are we focussed on the Spirit of Jesus Christ not in the first place as the Spirit of power, but simply as the Spirit Himself? Elisha esteemed his master extraordinarily highly. It was his spirit he longed to possess. He wanted to be like him. For this reason God has also sent His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is there, not only to reveal His power, but that Christ is seen in us in His power.

Now the way back starts for Elisha. He stands at the Jordan. With the mantle that fell on him, he strikes the Jordan, as Elijah had done: “Where is the God of Elijah, even He?”— He puts the God of Elijah into the centre of the first situation of death he meets, because even though he has the victory over the powers of death in his hand, death in itself has not yet ceased from existing. But now he profits from the fellowship in spirit with his ascended master.

Let us be reminded that victory over death was the last thing in Elijah’s life. But with Elisha, however, it is the first. And this now becomes the basis for all his further work. The whole history of Elisha is built on the fact that death has been conquered. It is marked with the mystery of the victory over all death. This is also the reason why the church can do greater works than her Lord, because she too stands in His victory over all power of death.

It is interesting to see that Elisha went back the whole way that he had come on with Elijah. From the Jordan he goes to Jericho and finds there a state of death. Nothing ripens to perfection. Everything wilts before fruition. Elisha, however, lets the testimony of victory over death be effective. The salt in a new jar is a symbol of the power of the resurrection in a new vessel. The new vessel is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ as she was manifested on the day of Pentecost. The church is the new vessel, the new jar, and the life in her is the victory over all power of death. Our advancement to heavenly fulness is nothing else but an increase in the power that has overcome death.

From Jericho the road leads on to Bethel. Malicious lads mock the ascension of Elijah. They laugh at the possibility of rapture—bears tear them up. This is a warning. It is dangerous to oppose the power of Jesus Christ. We put our life in danger when we stand in the way of the life of Jesus Christ. Bethel is connected to the heavenly, and nobody may dare to touch that which is the Lord’s. Ananias and Sapphira were to experience this. Heavenly authority rests on the church of Jesus Christ. When she has taken up her heavenly position, so that the power of the Resurrected becomes effective, then woe to him who dares challenge the authority of God in her.

How terrible it is to reject a heavenly vision, an inner seeing, because something earthly seems more desirable to us. Mighty forces operate on this earth: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:. The only salvation for us is our connection to our Lord in heaven.

The mockers were judged by the same powers that were operative within them. Figuratively speaking, they are those elements that have not come under the power of the Cross. Whoever gives himself over to them perishes through them.

From Bethel to Gilgal—there is a famine in Gilgal. The sons of the prophets go out to gather herbs. But they do not possess any discernment.  When they draw from the pot to eat, they realize that there is death in the pot—Elisha throws meal into the pot. Death has been withstood. They may eat. The meal is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Bread that came from heaven. Christ is our food. In Gilgal it becomes apparent whether Christ is our food, whether we can distinguish between the things of the flesh and those of the Spirit, because Gilgal stands for our crucifixion with Him being effective, so that it may henceforth be said: Christ is our life!

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Chapter 10 - Christ and the Rights of the Father

It is important to recognize that the Lord lived on this earth with a double purpose. For the first time there was a Man on this earth whose whole life was an expression of what God wanted, in Whom all the rights of God were fulfilled. This was what God had intended from the beginning. In Christ He saw it.

On the other hand, Christ therefore became the Cornerstone of a spiritual temple, a temple in which God’s rights are fully respected. Christ was never intended to stay by Himself. He was intended to become the Head of a body, the grain of wheat with much fruit, a vine with many branches. But what applies to the Head must also apply to the whole body; what applies to the body, also to the individual member. The Vine is to be recognized by its branches. By way of summarizing we can say: Christ, in living fellowship with His own, is purposed to be an expression of God’s rights.  God is to be everything and in everything.

That is why Paul does not address the Corinthians as an assembly of individuals, but he writes to “the church of God.” She is the church of God. The Lord desires His full rights in everything that belongs to Him.

If Christ is the Head of the church, then what should be true for all the members must first be made real in Him. Let us therefore now draw our attention to that through which God assures His rights in Christ. Herein a completely new outlook opens up for us on the life of Jesus Christ. We see that everything depends on the rights of the Father being expressed from moment to moment by Him. Let us briefly prove this by mentioning a few points.

Right at the beginning of His life we want to see two things: firstly the position that Jesus takes, and secondly the consequence of the stand He has taken.

This relates to His baptism. We do not have to say much about baptism as such. We can summarize it in a few words.

What did He want to express through it? Nothing less than that He Himself, with everything that He was, had died. However, this is not about a dying to sin in Him. He was without sin. Since it could not be about dying because of sin, and since baptism is nothing else but a picture of death and resurrection, in the case of Jesus Christ, therefore, it must have a special background. This is indeed the case. It would have been possible for Jesus Christ to live a personal life, that is, a life of His own choice, without the unbroken relationship with the Father, according to His own human will. In itself that would not have been sin. He could have acted independently of the Father.

Now, here we see the meaning and purpose of the baptism of Jesus Christ. His baptism was to express that He wanted to live in utter dependence on the Father, that He had died to everything that did not stand in close connection to His Father. It is futile to ask if a life independent from God would have led to sin, as it was in the case of Adam, because precisely through baptism the Son of God testified that He was not thinking of independence in the slightest and that He had died to every possibility of it. He refused to possess any will of His own. He gave the Father that which He demanded. He gave Him an unrestricted right to dispose of Him as He wished to. “Lo, I am come to do Thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:7).

This is the negative side to start with. The positive side, however, is in the fact that God now had such a Man, that somebody was there, a Man on this earth, in Whom the rights of God had been completely kept, Who could say: “Not My will, but Thine.” In other words: “I don’t want to live an earthly life as I want to my liking, but a life in full subjection and dependence on God. Not I, but God!” Paul writes in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, at verses 14 and 15: “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him Who for their sakes died and rose again.”

Let us express that in the shortest way possible for all of us: From now on I live for God! Nothing outside of Him, everything for Him. This is the way in which God comes to His rights. With reference to Jesus, this was the meaning of His baptism.

We see the Lord taking this stand from the beginning and from that moment everything had to be in agreement with this foundation. This means testing. That is why the road from the Jordan led to the desert. “He fasted for forty days and forty nights. Then He was hungry" (Matt. 4:2; Deut. 8:3). A state of physical weakness is always a good prerequisite for temptations from the enemy. The devil selects his occasions in such a way that they seem to promise success. He would have little to hope for, had he come forty days earlier, when Jesus stood in the full power of Him Who had spoken from an open heaven: “This is My beloved Son.” When, however, circumstances seemed suitable to him, he questioned the sonship of the Son of God with the word: “If Thou art the Son of God....” (Matt. 4:3). A promising position for the enemy!  A person who is close to dying of hunger and thirst, for whom something has to happen quickly, if he is to stay alive! At that moment the devil attacks.  That is temptation.

Do we not have the right to dare to do something for the sake of staying alive? The enemy whispers to us: “If you don’t do it, you will die.” For us, however, everything should revolve around the issue, without which nothing existed for the Lord Jesus: to persevere in dependence on the Father for as long as He wants.

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There are times when we feel as though we are pushed into a corner. Maybe we have taken a position of absolute obedience towards God. We have declared to God that we are willing for His will to be done. It does not take long before we find ourselves in an impossible position. Such a position is basically about nothing less and nothing else but our faithfulness towards God. Are we prepared to die rather than take our life into our own hands and give up our dependency on God, to perish rather than do something which God has not told us to do?

In connection with this temptation there is the possibility of a new discovery. We find this in the answer Jesus gives the devil: “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). The enemy could have answered: “Without food you will die." But the Lord knows another kind of food. Obedience means life. Jesus did not turn the stones into bread and yet still lived another three and a half years. Later when the disciples returned to Him, when He was sitting on the edge of the well of Samaria and asked Him to eat, He could tell them, from a deeper experience than they could imagine: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34). It is manna for us to be faithful to God. There is life in obedience.

The second temptation.—The devil set Him on the pinnacle of the temple. “If Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down”  (Matt. 4:6). The devil puts himself on the same ground as the Lord. He uses the Word. The temptation becomes therefore more intense. Besides the Lord, probably nobody knows the Word as well as the adversary. Therefore spiritual discernment is needed. This we have in the answer: “It is written: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord Thy God” (Matt. 4:7; Deut. 6:16). In which context is this Word written? Israel was in trouble. The question arose, whether the Lord was in her midst or not; in other words, a questioning of the faithfulness of God, whether God keeps His Word or not. Is it not significant that the Lord uses exactly this passage to answer the enemy? The devil says in other words: “If You believe that the Father is with You, then try it. If You are really convinced that He is on your side, then do something for once that will show this.” A big temptation that our Lord did not succumb to. But what must we do? We find ourselves in trouble. Do we believe that God is faithful? Do we consider the possibility that God could deny Himself? When the Lord says: “I am with you,” let us believe it. Let us never do anything to put God to the test. The Lord has a right to demand such a position from us. Jesus gave His Father this right. He held fast to the position that He had taken: “Not My will, but Your will be done.”

The third temptation.—The devil took Him to a high mountain. “All these things I will give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.” The answer: “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve” (Matt. 4:8-10).

Here too the context is important. The words are in Deuteronomy 5 verses 8 and 9. There we read of the worship of other gods. “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness... for I, the Lord, am a jealous God.” Let us take note that God jealously demands all worship, to be recognized and honoured as the only true God. With this passage the Lord defeats the enemy.  God demands all our worship.

World dominion is bound up with this last temptation. How can we gain world dominion? Who will rule over the kingdoms of the world in the end? He, Who has maintained the rights of God to the full. “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ” (Rev. 11:15). This is true for the church. She is destined to reign. The pressure of the enemy in connection with the offer of world dominion has to do with his demand of worship. Let us be assured that every pressure in our life serves the purpose to get us to worship the devil. Is this possible? Now, let us suppose we were in difficult times. It is possible for us to evade the difficulties. If it were faithfulness towards God and God-given revelation that brought us into this difficult situation, we could perhaps alleviate this situation through compromise. We could give in to something. Certainly, it would be unfaithfulness. We would steal from God what is His. But the difficulties! That is the enemy. That is the pressure: to bring us to a place where we rob God of something, or in other words, where we give the devil something. Ultimately it is about the issue of whom we worship, whom we trust completely, unreservedly. Our Lord Jesus Christ kept His position faithfully. At the Jordan He took this stand. “Nothing for Myself, everything for the Father. I live to do the Father’s will.” And then comes the test, the temptation. Then everything gets examined and tested as to its reality. But the day came when the Father could give His Son the confirmation from heaven: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. And He was transfigured before them.”

We too will be put to the test. For us too it is about the proof of the reality of the position to which we testified. We testified to have died to sin, self and the world. From now on I live for God only! This will be put to the test. It will be well with us if in faith we hold fast to this position, if we stand firm in everything that has been given to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him we have the victory. In Him we have everything. Oh, that we could wholeheartedly and with uninterrupted willingness say together with Paul:

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him Which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:15).

The End

Up next; The School of Christ

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In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given, his writings are not copyrighted. Therefore you are free to use these writings as you are led, however we ask if you choose to share writings from this site with others, please offer them freely - free of changes, free of charge and free of copyright.

The School of Christ
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 - The Foundation of Spiritual Education

Reading: Eze 40:2-4; 43:10-11; Matt 3:17; 11:25-30; John 1:51; Luke 9:23; Eph 4:20-21.

The basic word out of those read, for our present purpose, is Mat 11:29—"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me."

Learn of me. The Apostle Paul, in a slightly different form of words, gives us what the Lord Jesus meant—"Ye did not so learn Christ" (Eph 4:20).

Leaving out one very little word makes all the difference and gives the true sense. The Lord Jesus, while He was here, could only put it in an objective way, for the subjective time had not arrived: and so He had to say, 'Learn of me'. When the subjective time came, the Holy Spirit would lead the apostle to leave out the 'of', and say 'learn Christ'.

I am quite sure that many of you will immediately discern that is just the flaw in a very great deal of popular Christianity today—a kind of objective imitation of Jesus which gets nowhere, rather than the subjective learning Jesus which gets everywhere.

So for this little while we are to be occupied with the School of Christ, into which school He brought the twelve, whom He chose "that they might be with him and that he might send them forth" (Mark 3:14). They were first of all called disciples, which simply means they came under discipline. Before ever we can be apostles, that is, sent ones, we have to come under discipline, to be disciples, to be taught ones, and that in an inward way. It is into this school that every one who is born from above is brought, and it is very important that we should know the nature of it, what it is that we are going to learn, and the principles of our spiritual education.

THE OBJECT OF OUR SCHOOLING IS FIRST COMPREHENSIVELY PRESENTED

Coming into this school, the very first thing that the Holy Spirit, the great Teacher and Interpreter, does for us, if we are truly brought under His hand, is to show us in a comprehensive way what it is that we have to learn, to present to us the great object of our education. We read those passages in Ezekiel which I think have a great bearing upon this matter. In a day when the true expression of God's thought in the midst of his people had been lost and God's people were out of immediate touch with Divine thoughts, away in that far country, the Spirit of God laid His hand upon the prophet and took him in the Spirit in the visions of God back to Jerusalem, and set him upon a high mountain, and gave him that presentation of a new temple, forth from which would flow a river of life to the ends of the earth. Then He followed this up by going into the whole thing in the most minute detail, and later instructed the prophet to show the house to the house of Israel with a view to bringing about a recovery of spiritual life in conformity to that great comprehensive and detailed revelation of God's thought, that they should first of all be ashamed.

It is a much disputed matter whether the temple of Ezekiel will yet literally be set up on the earth. We will not argue about that, but of this one thing we need have no question, that all that Ezekiel saw has its spiritual counterpart and fulfillment in the Church which is His Body; spiritually it is all in Christ. And God's method with His people, in order to secure a full expression of His thought, is first of all to present the perfect Object: and this He did when at the Jordan He rent the heavens and said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased". He presented and attested that which was the full, comprehensive and detailed expression of His thought for His people. The Apostle Paul, in words familiar to us, expressly voices the fact,

"Whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Rom 8:29).

"This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" —"Conformed to the image of his Son". There is the presentation and the attestation and the declaration of Divine purpose in relation to Him. Therefore I repeat, the Holy Spirit's first object is to acquaint us with what is in view in our spiritual education; namely, that He is to reveal Christ in us and then afterward to get to work to conform us to Christ. To learn Christ we must first see Christ.

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THE PRE-EMINENT MARK OF A LIFE GOVERNED BY THE SPIRIT

The mark of a life governed by the Holy Spirit is that such a life is continually and ever more and more occupied with Christ, that Christ is becoming greater and greater as time goes on. The effect of the Holy Spirit's work in us is to bring us to the shore of a mighty ocean which reaches far, far beyond our range, and concerning which we feel—Oh, the depths, the fullness, of Christ! If we live as long as ever man lived, we shall still be only on the fringe of this vast fullness that Christ is.

Now, that at once becomes a challenge to us before we go any further. These are not just words. This is not just rhetoric; this is truth. Let us ask our hearts at once, Is this true in our case? Is this the kind of life that we know? Are we coming to despair on this matter? That is to say, that we are glimpsing so much as signified by Christ that we know we are beaten, that we are out of our depth, and will never range all this. It is beyond us, far beyond us, and yet we are drawn on and ever on. Is that true in your experience? That is the mark of a life governed by the Holy Spirit. Christ becomes greater and greater as we go on. If that is true, well, that is the way of life. If ever you and I should come to a place where we think we know, we have it all, we have attained, and from that point things become static, we may take it that the Holy Spirit has ceased operations and that life has become stultified.

Let us take the example of one who is given to us, I believe, as amongst men, for this very purpose of showing forth God's ways, the Apostle Paul. The words which he uses to define and express what happened to him right at the commencement are these: "It pleased God . . . to reveal his Son in me" (Gal 1:16). Now, that man did a very great deal of teaching and preaching. He put out a great deal. He had a long and very full life, not only in the amount that he put out, but in the concentrated essence which has defeated all the attempts to fathom. At the end of that long life, that full life, that man who said concerning its commencement, "It pleased God . . . to reveal his Son in me", is crying from his heart this cry, "that I may know him" (Phil 3:10); indicating surely that with the great initial revelation and all the subsequent and continual unveilings, even being caught up into the third heaven and shown unspeakable things, with all that, at the end he knows nothing compared with what there is to be known. That I may know Him! That is the essence of a life governed by the Holy Spirit, and it is that which will deliver us from death, from stagnation, from coming to a standstill. It is the work of the Spirit in the School of Christ to present and to keep in view Christ in His greatness. So God, right at the beginning, brings Christ forth, presents Him, attests Him, and in effect says, This is that to which I will to conform you, to this image!

Yes, but then, having the presentation, the basic lessons begin. The Holy Spirit is not satisfied with just giving us a great presentation: He is going to begin real work in relation to that presentation, and we are, under His hand, brought to two or three basic things in our spiritual education.

THE CHALLENGE AND MEANING OF AN OPEN HEAVEN

My aim, in co-operation with the Lord, is to make everything pre-eminently practical; and so we apply the challenge immediately, and I ask you, Is the Holy Spirit within you presenting God's fullness in His Son in an ever-growing way? Is that the nature of your spiritual life? If not, then you must have some definite exercise before the Lord about it; there is something wrong. The anointing means that, and if that is not the nature of your spiritual life, there is something wrong in your case in relation to the anointing. To Nathanael the Lord Jesus said, "Henceforth" (our old English word is 'hereafter', but I think many people have mistakenly thought that means the 'after life') "ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." Hereafter, of course, was the immediate hereafter, the days of the Holy Spirit which were coming so soon. With an open heaven you see, and you see God's meaning concerning His Son.

That open heaven for the Lord Jesus was the anointing. The Spirit descended and lighted upon Him. It was the anointing, and it is the same for us. The open heaven is the anointing of the Spirit from the day of Pentecost onward upon Christ within us. That open heaven means a continually growing revelation of Christ.

Oh, let me urge this. I am brought back to urge this. We must not just add other things too soon, but make sure that we are right on these matters. The open heaven at once brings Gods revelation in Christ to your very door, makes it available to you, so that you are not dependent in the first place upon libraries, books, addresses or anything else. It is there for you. However much the Lord may see good to use these other things for your help and enrichment, you have your own open heaven, your own clear way through, and no closed dome over your head. The Lord Jesus is becoming more and ever more wonderful in your own heart, because "God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness" hath "shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 4:6).

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THE 'OTHER-NESS' OF CHRIST

That being true—and if it is not, perhaps you must just suspend things there until you have had dealings with the Lord—that being true, the Holy Spirit gets to work on that, as I said, to make two or three other things very real to us, the first of which is the altogether 'other-ness' of Christ. How altogether other He is from ourselves. Taking the disciples who went into His school—it was not the School of the Holy Spirit in the same sense as ours is, but the result of their association with the Lord Jesus during those three or three and a half years was just the same—the first thing they learned was how other He was from themselves. They had to learn it. I do not think it came to them at the first moment. It was as they went on that they found themselves again and again clashing with His thoughts, His mind, His ways. They would urge Him to take a certain course, to do certain things, to go to certain places; they would seek to bring to bear upon Him their own judgments and their own feelings and their own ideas. But He would have none of it. At the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee, His own mother, with an idea, said, They have no wine. His reply was, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." What have I to do with thee? That is a weak translation. Far better, 'Woman, you and I are thinking in different realms; we have at the moment nothing in common.' Thus throughout their lives they sought to impinge upon Him with their mentality. No, all the time He was putting them back and showing them how different were His thoughts, His ways, His ideas, His judgments; altogether different. In the end I expect they despaired. He might well have despaired of them had He not known that this was exactly what he was doing in them. Catch that and you have got something helpful. 'Lord, why is it that I am always caught out, always making a blunder? Somehow or other, I always say and do the wrong thing, I am always on the wrong side! Somehow I never seem to come right in line with You; I despair of ever being right!' And the Lord says, 'I am teaching you, that is all; deliberately, quite deliberately. That is exactly what I am bringing you to see. Until you learn that lesson, we shall get nowhere at all. When you have thoroughly learned that lesson, then we can begin constructive work, but at present it is necessary for you to come to the place where you recognize I am altogether other than you are. The difference is such that we move in two altogether opposite worlds.'

This ordinary mind of man, at its best, is another mind. This will of man, at its best, is another will. You never do know what lies behind your motives until the Holy Ghost cleaves right down to the depths of your being and shows you. You may put your feelings and desires into the most devout terms. You may, like Peter, react to a Divine suggestion, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me", and say, "Not my feet only, but also my hands and my head"; but it is only self coming up again—my blessing. I want the blessing, and so miss the whole point the Master is trying to teach. 'I am trying to teach you self-emptying.' He might have said, 'and you are laying hold of every suggestion of mine for self-filling, to get; and I am trying to say, Give, let go!' This self comes up in the most spiritual (?) way. Self comes up for spiritual blessing. We do not know what lies behind. We have to come into a very severe school of the Spirit which eventuates in our coming to discover that our best intentions are defiled, our purest motives are unclean before those eyes; things that we intended to be for God, somewhere at their spring is self. We cannot produce from this nature anything acceptable to God. All that can ever come to God is in Christ alone, not in us. It never will, in this life, be in us as ours. It will always be the difference between Christ and ourselves. Though He be resident within us, He and He only is the object of the Divine good pleasure and satisfaction, and the one basic lesson you and I have to learn in this
life, under the Holy Spirit's tuition and revelation and discipline, is that He is other than we are: and that 'other-ness' is indeed an utter thing. That is one of the hard lessons.

It is certainly one that this world will refuse to learn. It will not have that. That runs directly counter to the whole system of the teaching of humanism—the wonderful thing that man is! Oh no, when you have come to your best, there is a gulf between you and the beginnings of Christ that cannot be bridged. If you attain your best, you have not commenced Christ. That is utter, but we perhaps hardly need that emphasis. Most of us have learned something.

But let us, while we know this in experience, take the comfort which comes perhaps from being told again exactly what is happening. What is the Lord doing, what is the Holy Spirit doing, with us? Well, as a basic thing, He is making us to know that we are one thing and Christ another. That is the most important lesson to learn, for there can be nothing constructive until we have learned it. The first thing, therefore, is the altogether 'other-ness' of Christ as over against ourselves.

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THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF REACHING GOD'S STANDARD OURSELVES

Then, secondly, the Holy Spirit brings us face to face with the utter impossibility of our ever being that of ourselves. You see, God has set up a standard, God has presented His model, God has given us His object for our conformity and the next thing we come up against is the utter impossibility of being that. Yes, of ourselves it cannot be. Have you not learned that lesson of despair yet? Is it necessary for the Holy Spirit to make you despair again? Why not have one good despair and get it all over? Why despair every few days? Only because you are still hunting round for something somewhere, some rag of goodness in yourself that you can present to God that will please Him, satisfy Him and answer to His requirements. You will never find it. Settle it that "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags". Our righteousness, all that trying to be so righteous, the Lord says of it all, "Filthy rags!" Let us settle this once for all. If you are looking ahead of what I am saying, you will see what it is leading to. It is leading to the most glorious position. It is leading to that glorious issue mentioned by the Lord Jesus in this way, in those days before things became inward: "Learn of me . . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls." That is the end. But we shall never find rest unto our souls until we have first of all learned the utter difference between Christ and ourselves, and then the utter impossibility of our ever being like Him by anything that we can find in ourselves, produce or do. It is not in us, in ourselves, in that way. So we had better despair our last despair with regard to ourselves. Those two things are basic.

A FINAL WORD AND EXHORTATION

But then the next thing the Holy Spirit will do will be to begin to show us how it is accomplished. We are not going to start on that just now, but stay with the fact that the Holy Spirit can do nothing until these other things are settled. Oh, God is very jealous for His Son. His Son has gone right through the fires over this matter, having accepted manform and a life of dependence, having voluntarily emptied Himself of that which meant that at any moment He could of Himself work by Deity for His own deliverance, salvation, provision, preservation; having emptied Himself of that right and said, I let go all My rights and prerogatives and powers of Deity for the time being and I accept man's position of utter dependence upon God as My Father; I meet all that man ever has to meet on man's level! * He met it in every realm in its concentrated form and force and went through without a flaw as man for man, and went back to the throne on the merit of a complete triumph over every force that ever man has to encounter in satisfying God. Do you think that after that God is ever going to forgo His Son, and all that He wrought in man's behalf, and say, Only be at your best and that will satisfy Me? Oh, what blindness to Christ, to God, is this Christianity that is popular today! No, there is only One in this universe concerning whom God can say from His heart "in whom I am well pleased", and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. If ever you and I are going to come into that favour, it will be as "in Christ Jesus", never in ourselves.

When that is learned, or when that part of the education has been taken up, then it is that the Holy Spirit can begin the work of conformity to the image of God's Son. Well, we have seen lessons one and two in the case of the disciples. Through the months and years, they came to see how altogether different He was from themselves, and then came to the place of despair on that very matter as the Lord intended it should be. He foresaw it all. He could not hinder it, He could not save them, He had to allow them to go that way; and right at the end when they were making their loudest protestations about their loyalty, their faithfulness, their endurance, and what they were going to do when put to the test, He said to them all, "Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone" (John 16:31-32). And to one in particular He said, "The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice" (John 13:38). What do you think those men felt when He was crucified, and they had all run away, and left Him alone, and the one had denied Him? Do you not think dark despair entered into their souls, not only over their lost prospects and expectations, but despair over themselves. Yes, and He had to allow it. He could take no step to prevent it; it was necessary. And you and I will go the same way if we are in the same school. It is essential. No constructive work can be done until that has got advanced within us.

Well, that sounds terrible, but that ought to be encouraging! After all, it is all constructive in a way. What is the Lord doing with me? He is preparing a way for His Son, He is clearing the ground for bringing in the fullness of Christ. That is what He is doing. He did it with them, and Pentecost and afterward was His answer to what happened on the day when He was delivered up, to all that happened with them. You say, Then He commenced His constructive work. Yes, He did; after the Cross and Pentecost, things began to change in an inward way, and from that time you begin to see that Christ is now manifested in a growing way in these men. They may have a long way to go, but you cannot fail to see that the foundation is laid, the commencement has been made. There is a difference, and the difference is not that they are necessarily changed men so much, as that Christ is now within them transcending what they are by nature. It is not that they become so much better, but it is that Christ within becomes so much more real as a power.

That is all for the moment. Let us bow our hearts today, yield today. It is the School of Christ. I know how challenging it is, challenging to this old man who dies very hard, yields with great difficulty. All our training, teaching, perhaps has been other than this. We have come into this horrible heritage of humanism—to be the best that I can be, to be my best! Well, you must take what I am saying in the sense in which I am saying it. No one is going to think that you can go and just be careless, slovenly, at your worst or less than your best, simply because of what I have said; but you know what I am talking about. At our best we can never pass across that gap between man and Jesus Christ. No, that gap remains, and the only way to get over is to die and to be raised from the dead; but that, for the moment, is another matter.

[Shammu]

Chapter 2 - Learning the Truth

"Jesus therefore said to those Jews that had believed him, If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered unto him, We are Abraham's seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin. And the bondservant abideth not in the house for ever: the son abideth for ever. If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:31-36).

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof" (John 8: 44).

"Ye have not known him: but I know him; and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be like unto you, a liar: but I know him, and keep his word" (John 8: 55).

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).

"The Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in you" (John 14:17).

"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me" (John 15:26).

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom 1:18).

"For that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie" (Rom 1:25).

"If so be that ye heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus" (Eph 4:21).

"Put on the new man, which after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth" (Eph 4:24).

"These things saith he that is holy, he that is true" (Rev 3:7).

"These things saith the Amen (=Verily), the faithful and true witness" (Rev 3:14).

In our previous meditation, we were speaking together about the School of Christ, and we were saying that every true child of God is brought into the School of Christ under the hand of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the anointing, and that there the first great work of the Holy Spirit is to present Christ to the heart as God's object for all the Holy Spirit's dealings with us. Thus Christ is first of all presented and attested by God as the object of His pleasure, and then the Holy Spirit makes known the Divine purpose in connection with that inward revelation of the Lord Jesus, namely, that we should be conformed to the image of God's Son. Then we were speaking about two or three basic lessons in the school, things which underlie our education. Firstly, the Holy Spirit takes pains to make all who are under this discipline (for that is the meaning of a disciple) to know in experience, in an inward way in their own hearts, the altogether 'other-ness' of Christ from themselves. Then He also works to bring us to the place where we realize how impossible the situation is apart from miracles of God, that of ourselves we can never be like Christ. The one upshot of it all is that this must be something outside ourselves which is God's own doing.

Well, this is all preliminary in the School of Christ, although it seems to me that this preliminary education goes on to the end of our days. At any rate, it seems to be spread over a great deal of our life, though there should be a point reached which represents a definite crisis in the matter, at which a foundation is laid wherein these three things are recognized and accepted, and we shall not get very far until it is so. The person who really does begin to move is the person who has had his final despair over himself, and has come to see quite clearly by the Holy Spirit's illumination that it is "no longer I, but Christ"—'Not what I am, O Lord, but what Thou art, that, that alone, can be my soul's true rest': Thy love, not mine; Thy peace, not mine; Thy rest, not mine; Thy everything, nothing of mine; Thyself! That is the essential foundation of spiritual growth, spiritual knowledge, spiritual education.

[Shammu]

"I AM THE TRUTH"

Now, in this meditation, we come to look at the Lord Jesus more closely as God's object and standard for the Holy Spirit's work in us, this 'other-ness' which He represents, and we have read a number of passages, all of which, as you noted, bear upon truth. Surely those passages in the Gospels must have played a part in the disciples' education. In the first place there was the statement or declaration made to the Jews—a tremendous thing to be said in the hearing of those disciples. There were Jews who made a profession of believing. The Lord Jesus raises the question of discipleship with them. He said to those Jews who had believed Him (it does not say they had believed on Him), "If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." They answered back at once with the counter claim, "We are Abraham's seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man." He presses this matter of the truth, truth in relation to Himself. "If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The question of whose seed they were arose, and associated with that the statement "if therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed". Do you follow that? Knowing the truth is knowing the Son. Freedom by the truth is by the knowledge of Him.

Then to the Jews—I presume of the more violent type— He said these words of unparalleled strength: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth . . . he is a liar, and the father thereof . . . when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own." Tremendously strong language, and all on this question of the truth, the truth as bound up with Himself.

Then, when you come to chapter 14, He is with His disciples alone; and Philip says to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." His reply is, "Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Another question in the school: "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; how know we the way?" "I am the way, and the truth . . ." I am the truth. The truth is not some thing; the truth is a Person. Well, all this is in the School of Christ, bearing upon Christ as the Truth.

I do not know how strongly you feel about the matter, but our object surely is that we should come to feel very strongly about these things. How do you feel about the importance of having a true foundation? and after all, the supreme feature in a foundation is truth, that the thing should be well and truly laid. This foundation has to take a fairly heavy responsibility, no less a responsibility than our eternal well-being and destiny, nay, the very vindication of God Himself. Therefore it must be absolutely true and the truth, and it surely behoves us to make very sure of where we are; in other words, to have done with all our unreality, to finish for ever with anything that is not genuine and utterly true in our position. It is just this that we are going to press and analyze for a little while now. So great are the consequences that we cannot afford to have anything doubtful in our position.

It is like this. You and I are going to face God sometime. We are going to come face to face with God literally in eternity and then the question is going to arise, Has God at any point failed us? Shall we be able, on any detail, to say, Lord, You failed me, You were not true to Your word? Such a position is unthinkable, that ever any being should be able to lay a charge like that at God's door, to have any question as to God's truth, reality, faithfulness. The Holy Spirit has been sent as the Spirit of truth to guide us into all the truth, so that there shall be no shadow whatever between God and ourselves as to His absolute faithfulness, His truth to Himself, and to all His word. The Holy Spirit has come for that. If that is true, then the Holy Spirit will deal with all disciples in the School of Christ to undercut everything that is not true, that is not genuine, to make every such disciple to stand upon a foundation which can abide before God in the day of His absolute and utter vindication.

[Shammu]

THE NEED FOR A TRUE FOUNDATION

But in order that this may be so, you and I, under the Holy Spirit's teaching, have to be dealt with very faithfully, and have to come to the place where we are perfectly adjustable before God, where there is all responsiveness to the Holy Spirit, and nothing in us that resists or refuses the Holy Spirit, but where we are perfectly open and ready for the biggest consequence of the Holy Spirit putting His finger upon anything in our lives needing to be dealt with and adjusted. He is here for that.

The alternative to such a work of the Holy Spirit being allowed to be done in us is that we shall find ourselves in a false position, and it is far, far too costly to find ourselves in a false position, even though it only be on certain points. This is a false world we are living in, a world that is carried on upon lies. The whole constitution of this world is a lie, and it is in the very nature of man, though multitudes do not know it, but think they are true. They are trying to build the world on a false foundation. The Kingdom of God is altogether other. It is built upon Jesus Christ, the Truth.

Well now, my emphasis at the moment is upon the need for a true position where we are concerned. Oh for men and women in whom the truth of Christ has been wrought and who will go on with God, no matter what it costs. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?" "He that speaketh truth in his heart . . . he that sweareth to his own hurt"—that is, who takes the position of verity though it cost him dear. We are influenced by all sorts of false considerations, influenced by what others will think and say, especially those in our religious circles, of our tradition; and they are false considerations and false influences. They bind and keep many men and women from going right on with God in the way of light. The issue is a false position at last.

Will you accept it when I say that there is no truth in us? This is one of the things we are going to find out under the Holy Spirit's dealings with us, that there is no truth in our minds naturally. We may be the most strongly convinced, and we may be prepared to lay down our lives for our convictions and to put everything into the crucible for what we believe with all our beings is right, is true, and in that very thing we may be utterly wrong. Such was the case with Saul of Tarsus—"I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts 26:9). Again, "The hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think he offereth God service" (John 16:2); so zealous for their conviction—That is God's will! God's will! —convinced it is God's will; some to give their own lives on the strength of their conviction, and some to take other people's lives on the strength of their conviction. How far we will go on the strength of conviction and be wrong, utterly wrong, as utterly wrong as we are in earnest. A false conviction; and there is not one human mind incapable of getting into that state. The seeds of that are in human nature, in every one of us; in the mind as to conviction, the heart as to desire. We may think our desire is a perfectly pure and right one, and it may be utterly false; and so with our will, just the same. In us by nature there is no truth.