Books by T. Austin-Sparks

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Chapter 4 - The Return of Grace

We proceed to a further small fragment in this great matter which has been opened to us concerning the change from the old Israel to a new Israel, which was declared by the Lord Jesus Himself when He said to the leaders and representatives of the old Israel: "The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:43). This actually has taken place. As the last many centuries of history have made perfectly evident, the Kingdom of God has been taken away from that former Israel, and they are without it all through this present dispensation. It has been transferred to a new Israel - "a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof".

We have been seeing how Peter is the bridge between the two Israels, standing in the gap between the old and the new, and how by him the old passes and the new is established, both in his own person, and what was done in him by the Holy Spirit, and in his ministry. The fruits of a nation, of the kingdom of the new Israel, are manifested, and we have been looking at some of the fruits as seen in and through the life and the ministry of this first of the twelve, the Apostle Peter.

If you have any doubt whatever about the truth of this, you only have to look at his first Letter again. We have said a lot of things, which are true, but there is that which gathers it all up and presents it to us concretely. You will find it in his first Letter, chapter 2, verses 4-10:

"Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Because it is contained in scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be put to shame. For You therefore which believe is the preciousness: but for such as disbelieve, The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner; and, A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; for they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may shew forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy."

(Note in verse 9: "But ye..." There is the transition to the new.)

That section does not leave us in any doubt that the old has been transferred to the new, but in a different realm and with a different nature. Peter, who had all the tradition of the former Israel, has come to see that now all that was there in a temporal way has been passed over to a spiritual realm. Now all is of a spiritual, and not of a temporal, character.

There are many things here that would be helpful for us to dwell upon. We could take up this whole paragraph bit by bit, for there is so much wealth in it. I am not intending to do that, but I want to point out one thing in that connection before passing on to the thing which I feel is the Lord's word for this time.

The Location of the New Israel

Here the Apostle says: "Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may shew forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." Do you notice that is all in the singular? "An elect race, a holy nation, a royal priesthood."

In the old dispensation that was all concentrated in a place on this earth: in the temple at Jerusalem. That Israel had its focal point, its unity, in that geographical centre. The elect race was represented, gathered into, Jerusalem, and its focus was there. The holy nation was synonymous with Jerusalem, whither the tribes went up. The royal priesthood was centred in Jerusalem. That was where Israel went to see the priesthood, for it functioned in the city of the great king. They were 'a people for God's own possession': one thing, with that focal point in the nations.

Now, how does Peter begin his first Letter? "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect" ... who are centred in Jerusalem? No, not at all! ... "who are the sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" - and anywhere else you like to mention. Do you see the point? Wherever this people is there is a representation of all this. If it is anywhere in the world, dispersed amongst the nations over the earth, there it represents, or is intended to represent, all that is here about the new Israel.

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An Elect Race

If we were to dwell upon that it would take a long time, but there is one thing that we will say.

You know that the elect is something very, very precious to God, so precious that it is going to be saved (Matthew 24:22). It says that at the end "there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect" (Matthew 24:24 - AV). Logically, of course, the elect is not going to be deceived. It is something very precious to God, wherever it is, but it is no longer something concentrated in some place on this earth, whether it be Rome, or Jerusalem, or anywhere else, but it is scattered abroad in the nations. Not only is it representative of the new Israel, but it is called upon, and expected, to function there in this capacity.

A Royal Priesthood

The priesthood in the new Israel is not a cult of men wearing certain kinds of robes, performing a certain ritual, and going through a certain performance of religion. There are no outward robes on the royal priests in the new Israel. You, dear friends, if you are in this, are as much a priest as ever there was a priest in the Israel of old, and your function as such, therefore, is to "offer up spiritual sacrifices" to be a sacrificing priest in union with the King. A royal priesthood is a priesthood of kingship, of Divine rule, authority, majesty, and united with the Throne, to function as such.

A Holy Nation

Do you remember what we have said about holiness? 'Holy' in the Bible means being completely separated from all that is not God to all and only what is God, being separated unto God. 'Holy' and 'sanctified' are the same word, with the same meaning - completely God's, with every other link severed. God's holy people are a holy nation among the nations, but different from the nations, a holy nation in the world, but different therefrom. Peter says: 'You are not now a temple made with hands, built with stone, after the old order, but you are a spiritual house, wherever you are scattered, and God only sees one. However so many parts there may be, with very many miles between, God only sees one spiritual house, composed of spiritual stones. Jesus Christ is not so many corner stones, but one corner stone of the whole.'

There is here another one of these remarkable allusions to Peter's former life in the days of Christ's flesh, and it is more than interesting. I sometimes feel that these allusions almost touch a vein of humour as Peter in his mentality is picking it all up and transferring it. He says here about this new spiritual house that is being built in this dispensation, that this is the fulfilment of the Old Testament statement: "I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious...", and then he goes on: "A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; for they stumble at the word."

'Peter, I am going up to Jerusalem, and there I am going to be delivered into the hands of wicked men. They will crucify Me...' 'No, Lord, never! This shall never come to Thee!' "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a stumblingblock unto me." "They stumble at the word." This is wrought into the very fibre of Peter's spiritual life. How the word of the Cross was a stumblingblock to Peter! What Paul said about the Jews was true of him: "The word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness... we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock" (1 Corinthians 1:18,23). It was an offence to them, and the word 'offence' is, as you know, the same word in the original as 'stumblingblock'. The Greek word is 'scandal', 'offence' or 'stumblingblock'. Peter fell headlong when the Lord Jesus spoke of the Cross, and He said: 'You are an offence, a stumblingblock. You are a scandal to Me. Get thee behind Me!' Ah, Peter has pulled over here, and to the unbelieving people he says: 'This whole new spiritual house, and all to do with it, is not believed and therefore you stumble at the word. You go headlong over this. It is a rock of offence. The word of the Cross is an offence. But to you who believe is the preciousness.' That is the difference between the old and the new.

Well, I have said that we could see so much more about this change from the old to the new - the new house, the new sacrifices - but I want to give the short remaining space to one special thing in this Letter.

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The Return of Grace

First, we note how Peter himself represents this new Israel in the transition, and the tremendous thing that had to be done to make that transition from the one to the other. We have been seeing what a transition it was in Peter's case. We have really only been glimpsing it, but it was a tremendous thing that happened in this man! Look again at the former Peter, the Simon Peter before what the Lord Jesus referred to as his conversion - "when once thou hast turned again" (Luke 22:32) - and remember the fulness of selfhood, and his assertiveness. If anyone is going to speak first, it will be Peter, and if anyone is going to speak loudest, it will be Peter. If anyone is going to take the floor before anyone else, it will be Peter. He was asserting himself all the time. "Thou shalt never wash my feet" (John 13:, and then, seeing that there is a possibility of losing something and that by changing his attitude he would get something more: "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." ... 'I will have all that I can get.'

You see this strength of self-assertiveness, his self-sufficiency all the time: 'I will never forsake Thee. Though all men forsake Thee, I will never do so. I will go even unto death with Thee.' Such self-sufficiency: and we could enlarge upon this side of the man - how full he was in himself! Then see this man being undone, really taken to pieces and emptied. It was a terrific thing! You would hardly believe that in so short a time after making these assertions, these bold, self-confident assertions, this man should be found totally unable to carry out what he said he would do. He was stripped, emptied of it all, undone; and the last word of that scene is: "And he went out, and wept bitterly." He was broken, shattered, desolated and emptied. But that was necessary for this passage through into the new realm, this new Israel, this new spiritual position. And so I say Peter himself is a representative of the kind of thing that has to be done to make the transition from one Israel to the other.

With you and with me it may not all happen between the morning and the evening, and it may not ever go like that in one day, but, believe me, the principle holds good. Dear friends, it is going to be just in the measure in which you and I are emptied of ourselves that we know the meaning, the power, the glory and the preciousness of the new Israel and of the Lord Jesus. That is why the Lord takes pains to empty us. It may be spread over many years. Indeed I think that when it starts, and we do not so rebel that we bind the Lord's hands so that He cannot go on, it goes on until the end of our lives. On the one side making us say 'NO!' to our own weakness and our own foolishness after all, to our own emptiness and undone state. That is on the negative side, but on the positive: our utter dependence upon the Lord, so that if it were not for the Lord the situation would be hopeless. That is Peter, representing this new thing that has come in.

That leads me to the thing that I want particularly to emphasize at this time, in the light of what I have just been saying, and in that setting - the undoing of this man.

What is Peter's characteristic word in this Letter? I have no doubt that Bible students would give it to me at once! It is the word 'grace'. It does not take more than about ten minutes to read this Letter, and when you have done so you have read the word 'grace' twelve times. Unfortunately it is not always translated as 'grace'. I do not know why the translators changed the same word into another English word. Twice they have translated this same word into 'acceptable', but, including those two occasions where the original word is still the same, the Apostle uses the word 'grace' twelve times in this very short Letter.

You know how he begins his greeting: "According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied" (1 Peter 1:2).

Then in verse 10: "Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you." The prophets looked forward to what we have, and there it is: the grace purposed for this new Israel. It is the inheritance of this new Israel, and the prophets prophesied about it long before.

We turn to chapter 2, and here we come upon the other unfortunate translation, but in putting it right we have something very rich:

"For this is acceptable, if for conscience toward God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye sin, and are buffeted for it, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is acceptable with God" (verses 19,20).

Now put it right:

"For this is grace, if for conscience toward God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye sin, and are buffeted for it, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is grace with God" (RV margin).

You will see at once that Peter uses the word 'grace' in an altogether different way from Paul. Paul uses this word tremendously; indeed, it is almost a characteristic word of his, but his use of it is always 'God's grace toward us'. We call it 'unmerited favour', justifying us, who are not just at all. "The riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us" (Ephesians 1:7,8).

Peter has a different angle on this matter. Of course, he would agree with Paul, for this whole experience of his is based upon God's favour toward him. Just think of the grace of God toward this man! But what is he saying? 'Out of the grace which has been so marvellously shown in my case, I have to show grace from myself outwardly in this world of difficulty and of suffering. That grace has to have a reaction toward people and toward things. That grace which God has shown to me I have got to show now when I am under stress, trial and difficulty, buffeted for being right and doing the right thing, and unjustly accused and made to suffer. There must be no retaliation. I must endure patiently.' That is the return of grace - the grace of God in us as a return action, in order to 'show forth the excellencies of Him'.

That is a wonderful way of using the word 'grace'! But it is very practical - Peter is very practical. He says: 'Look here, you are being treated unfairly, unjustly, and you do not really merit what you are having to put up with. It is not because of wrong in you. You can be bitter, rebellious, resentful, if you like. You can give as good as you get. You can retaliate.' But Peter says that is a breakdown of grace. If, when things are like that, you take it patiently, then that is grace. You see, this word 'acceptable' is quite a good word: "acceptable with God". The meaning is there, but it is not so apparent, is it, as when it is translated correctly? 'This is grace with God: suffering wrongfully and taking it patiently.'

cont'd next post

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Now we are all put on the spot over this! This human nature of ours is not like that! Mine is not, at any rate. Is yours? Have you got any fighting nature? Have you any self-strength? Have you any soul strength? Do you say: 'I am not going to take that lying down'? Well, that is just what is here. Grace is: Taking it lying down and letting them go on.

This is a new order of things, is it not? So different from the old Israel! It is a new realm: grace in its reactions to persecutions, misrepresentations, slanders and everything that is unfair and untrue, keeping your tongue still, your lips closed and refusing to vindicate yourself. This is grace with God.

In the last chapter I mentioned one other thing and I am not going to return to it in detail - the relationship between husbands and wives and wives and husbands when the situation is difficult because either may be having to put up with something difficult from the other. The Apostle, as you remember, said (in chapter 3:7) that the basis of that relationship is that they are 'fellow-heirs of the grace of life'. If they are true, both of them being born again, they have a common ground - Divine life, the grace of life, and they must always seek to react to one another upon the common ground of what is of the Lord in each other. It is not always easy, but it is a very different kind of life from the old realm.

We just mention that, and pass on into chapter 4:10: "Good stewards of the manifold grace of God". Here we are again on very practical ground. The Lord has given you a gift of some kind. It may be a gift of a temporal kind, such as means, or a gift of influence, or it may be that you have a spiritual gift of some kind. Whatever it is, you have, by the grace of God, some resource, something in your hand, something that you possess. It is something that the Lord has given you, and He has given it to you to use. Whatever it is, it is a stewardship that has been committed to you, and that stewardship has to be exercised upon the principle of grace. Grace does not mean keeping to yourself what you have, and withholding from others what you could give. It does not mean letting others suffer loss when you could do something to meet their need, whatever it may be, spiritual or temporal. Grace in us demands that we do all that we can to see that others are ministered to. That is grace - 'as good stewards of the many-sided grace of God', which just means that to one the grace of God has given this, and to another that. It is not the same to everyone, but everyone in this new Israel has something to give.

I could take you back to the Old Testament and illustrate that. What about the building of the tabernacle? Everyone had to give something - gold, silver, wood, fabric. Everyone had something to contribute, and they were called upon to minister what they had. Now we have passed over into this new spiritual Israel, and what have we got that others would benefit by? It is a violation of the principle of grace to keep it to ourselves and not let others have it. Well, perhaps that is too self-evident to need emphasizing, but you see that Peter uses the word 'grace' in this connection, meaning that every member of the spiritual Israel should be a contributing member in some way or other, and not just a receiving one. There are far too many passengers in the Church, far too many who just sit with open mouths, taking it all in, and never giving anything. I hope that does not apply to anyone here. Grace means that we are a giving people. We have something to give, and we are giving it, and we ought to have something to give.

"Likewise, ye younger, be subject unto the elder. Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble" (v. 5). I like this very much! You would miss it very largely, except for the obvious surface statements and words, unless you knew exactly what lies behind this in the original language, and then you would see at once what Peter is talking about. Supposing I give it to you: "All of you gird on the apron of humility to serve one another." Now where are you? You are back in John 13, where Jesus laid aside His robe and put on the apron of the servant - girded Himself with the apron of the servant. Peter has not forgotten that! "Now all of you put on the apron of the servant to serve one another; for God resisteth the proud." Peter was very, very near to that at that time: "Never wash my feet!" Why not? Peter was too proud. "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." Grace is donning the servant's apron to serve one another. Need we say anything more about that? This is the true grace of God.

"And the God of all grace, who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall himself perfect, stablish, strengthen you. To him be the dominion for ever and ever" (v. 10,11).

Grace triumphant through suffering. Peter is at the end of the Letter now and is only going to have one more use of this word. But he has said a lot in this Letter about suffering - the sufferings of Christ being shared by the members of this new Israel... "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, as though a strange thing happened unto you" (4:12). Yes, he has a lot to say about sufferings, and they were sufferings! You do not perhaps know that when he wrote this Letter the great persecution under Nero had broken out. Paul was beheaded, and how long there was between that and Peter being crucified we do not know, but he remembered and mentioned it here, in 2 Peter 1:14, that he was to put off his tabernacle even as the Lord had shown him. And where did the Lord show him that? In John 21:18: "When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he should glorify God." Although it is not recorded in the New Testament, the tradition is quite strong that Peter was crucified. The difference between Paul's death and Peter's was this: the Romans could not crucify a Roman citizen, and Paul was a Roman citizen, so he could not be crucified. But anyone of another nation could be crucified, so Peter was crucified and Paul was beheaded.

So now it was the time of suffering. Paul meets the ultimate of that suffering and Peter is about to meet it. It was a time when all the Christians everywhere were being terribly persecuted, but here Peter says: 'Through the suffering of this little while there will be grace sufficient to make us triumphant.' Grace triumphant in suffering! I would say that we are not always overwhelmingly conscious of that triumphant grace, but what I could say is this: After a fairly long life, and knowing a little bit about this, the marvel of the triumph is that we are still found going on with the Lord, when a hundred times, if it had been left to us, we could have gone out. It is a terrible thing to say, but it is possible to come to such a place that you would wash your hands of Christianity altogether when you come to know the real state of things in the realm of Christendom. Well, that is a shocking thing to say - but for the grace of God where would we be through all the sufferings? However, here it is: "After that ye have suffered a little while, shall himself perfect, stablish, strengthen you."

Now, with all this about grace in this Letter, what is the final word? "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18). 'Grow in your patience, in your forbearance, in your being silent under provocation, in your enduring suffering, in the difficulties of your relationships - let it be growing in grace.'

You will see how hurried one has had to be and how much one has had to leave out, but that is enough! I can say more in an hour than you can fulfil in a lifetime!

Let us go away and ask the Lord for grace, that the word which He has spoken to us shall really be, as with this man, in our very being, and that this shall be the kind of people that we are.

The End

Up next; The Spiritual Meaning of Service

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The Spiritual Meaning of Service
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 - The Belovedness of Christ

Reading: Exodus 32:1-6,15-29; Malachi 2:4-6; 3:1-3; Numbers 4:1-3; Luke 3:23.

The matter of the priestly service or ministry of the people of God, the service of God in terms of priestliness, is one which has been on my heart for a considerable time now. We will introduce the subject with a very simple consideration of what I am going to call the 'belovedness' of Christ, in this particular connection - His priestly ministry.

In the passages which we have just read, to which a great many more could be added, two things are quite clear. One, that the Lord's people are called to be a priestly people - that is their vocation; two, that in that function they are peculiarly precious to the Lord. You cannot read the many passages in the Scriptures about the Levites without being impressed by that one thing, that they are very precious to the Lord. The last reference to them in the Old Testament, which we have read, indicates that. There is a tone of very real endearment in the words of the Lord about Levi at that point. At the end of the story of the Old Testament, after all that has taken place through the years, the Lord looks right back to that day of which we read in Exodus 32, and speaks of how precious and valuable the Levites became to Him, so much so that He entered into a covenant with them, a covenant of life and peace. "My covenant was with him of life and peace".

The Priestly Ministry of Christ and the Father's Love

And you will notice the connection between the statement in Numbers 4:3, that the active Levites started their ministry at the age of thirty, and the statement that Jesus was likewise thirty years of age when He began His public ministry; indicating not only in itself, but by other features which we shall notice, that His ministry was essentially a Levitical, that is, a priestly, ministry. We all believe that, and we know how much is made of that, especially in the letter to the Hebrews. But notice that that statement in Luke 3 - "Jesus... when he began... was about thirty years of age" - follows immediately upon His baptism and the opening of the Heavens, and the Father's voice and attestation: "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." There is something about the Lord Jesus, just at this point when He takes up His priestly ministry, which draws out the love of the Father for Him in these affectionate expressions. It is true that He was the Son, and therefore He was beloved of God as His Son, but I believe there was a particular connection between His beginning of a priestly ministry, and this expression of the Father's love and appreciation for the preciousness of this upon which He was entering. That is the point of our concentration just now - the 'belovedness' of the Lord Jesus, and so of the Levites, as entering into the meaning of Christ's ministry in terms of priesthood, precious to the Lord.

I suggest to you, dear friends, that the thing that you and I need, and perhaps more than anything else desire, to be assured about, is: What is there, peculiarly precious to the Lord, into which we may be brought, in which we may be found, which may be entrusted to us? What we really are seeking for all the time is: What is it that the Lord wants more than anything else? What is it that is more precious to the Lord than anything else? Can there be something in the life of God's people corresponding to this 'belovedness' of Christ? It is very important to know that. There are many things that may be of value, but they may be of comparative value. What we want to know, what we must know, is: What is that which the Lord really looks upon as most precious to Himself, which will serve Him to the greatest value? The Lord Jesus received the assurance that the Father's love, appreciation and valuation were focused upon Him, just at the point when He stepped out into His public ministry. It is a great thing to start any work or move out into any service on a basis like that, is it not? Just think of what strength there would be if we had absolute assurance that that to which we were committed was something of tremendous value to God!

As we go on in our Christian lives and in our manifold work for the Lord, we find that time is a great sifter. Trial, testing, adversity and suffering, and all the things which come to bear upon us, very often make us raise seriously the question of values. 'Is it worth it? Is it justified? Does this really matter? Is this of such importance?' From time to time we are forced to ask, 'Now, what does it all amount to, after all?', and it is then a great delivering and confirming thing to have the answer: 'This is precious - of very real value - even of supreme importance to the Lord'. It was the starting-point of the Lord Jesus in His life-work - His belovedness to the Father, not only in His Person and Sonship, but in the thing to which He was committing Himself.

It is very important to know, and it is not wrong to say, that we can be brought into that belovedness. The Levites, representing God's thought for all His people, came into that in a very real way. The Lord let it be known right through the centuries that they represented something very valuable, very precious to Himself. "My covenant was with him of life and peace".

An Open Heaven

Then you notice that when the Lord Jesus began at the Levitical age of thirty, the one thing that marked that beginning was the opened Heaven. The Heavens were opened. Now look back again at Exodus 32, and you see that that is exactly what is there. Moses, receiving the law and the testimony on Sinai in communion with the Lord, came down from the mount. The Lord had already told him what was happening down below, but Joshua did not know. Joshua was always a man of war, and any noise to him sounded like war, and when he heard the sound from the camp he interpreted it as war. His spirit rose to the occasion for fighting, but Moses said, 'No, that is not war - I know what that is', and he came down and saw, and took it all in.

Moses stood in the gate, and Israel became divided into two parties. On the one side, Heaven was closed. No doubt about it, Heaven was closed to them that day. It was doom, judgment, darkness, exclusion; they were set aside, cast out. Heaven was no longer open. On the other side of Moses were the Levites, and the open Heaven was with them. On the basis of their action, their decision, the open Heaven was their inheritance that day, and from that time onward theirs was the ministry of the open Heaven. Levitical ministry is the ministry of an open Heaven, and the opened Heaven is the sign and seal of the preciousness of that to the Lord. To be living, walking, working, in the good of a Heaven opened, is the mark of preciousness to the Lord. No judgment, no exclusion, no doom, no darkness, no wrath, but an open Heaven - the inheritance of the Levite, and the inheritance of the Lord Jesus, the greatest of the Levites.

Do you grasp the significance and importance of that? We are talking about service. Forget for the moment the terms in which we couch the message - 'Levitical' and 'priestly' sound very ecclesiastical, very formal - and just think about the service which is precious to the Lord. That kind of service means the service which corresponds to the Lord Jesus, that pre-eminently marks the Lord Jesus. It has the seal of God upon it, that this is something supremely precious to the Lord; and the seal is that you have an open Heaven. That is, the way between you and God is wide open: there is no shadow, no cloud, no interruption: the course is clear between God and yourself, and yourself and God. If it is not like that, the service will be hard going, always under a sense of Divine reservation, that the Lord is not really with you as you feel He ought to be.

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The Marks of the Ministry

An open Heaven, and "My covenant... with him of life and peace". What is the mark of this kind of ministry? What is the mark of a people standing in such a position, such a relationship with the Lord under an open Heaven?

(1) Life

Well, it is always with this twofold characteristic. First of all, life is being ministered all the time. Look at the whole history of the work of the Levites. We shall perhaps say more about that later. Their whole ministry was one of maintaining life, keeping open the way of life, ministering life. But for them, death would have set in: they were the bulwarks against death. They were the channel of life from Heaven to the people of God, and I suggest again that the real test of the service that is precious to the Lord is not 'size', not many things that men think to be the marks of success, but whether there is a ministration of life: is life being ministered, is life being poured out? Is the one thing of which you are conscious in that ministry the presence of life? It is not just a matter of our understanding the terms and the phrases and the language and the teaching, but our recognition of life.

And what do we want apart from that, and what do we want more than that? Is it not that that the people of God need, after all? Oh, for life! It is life we want, we must have life - give us life! We cannot live without life! And the Levites were the ministers of life. Christ, the great Levite, was the Minister of life; and real service to the Lord is that we minister life - not that people come necessarily into a great range of truth, a vast amount of knowledge and information that is purely intellectual or mental, but that they have life ministered to them. That is the seal of the real service of God.

But when you come to think about it, that, after all, is the whole matter. It is summed up in that, and - because of the preciousness of this kind of service into which you and I are called - in the 'belovedness' of Christ. Oh, what a wonderful thing! That is something that we cannot talk about; we can only feel and sense. If it might be that the Lord should be able to look toward us with deep appreciation and say 'beloved', in recognition that there is something in our lives, in our service, in our ministry, of very, very great account to Himself, that there might be transferred to us something of the belovedness of His own Son.

(2) Peace

"And peace." Was it peace for those people who broke loose on that day? No, in the very deepest sense it was war. It was war between them and God, and between God and them. No peace with that. But the covenant of life over against their death, and of peace over against their controversy - or God's controversy with them - the covenant of life and peace was with Levi. Peace: it is a wonderful thing to be in the place where God is satisfied, and your heart is at rest. That place is in Christ.

God's Jealousy Over the Levites

Now, because of the value of that to God, see how jealous He was over the Levites. It is a long story of Divine jealousy concerning their place and ministry. God was so jealous about the Levites, as to their rightful place, and the ministry which was entrusted to them, that some of the most terrible things in the history of Israel happened when the Levites were not given their place and their portion. This book of Malachi is just full of that. Glance through this short book, and note how many times reference is made to priesthood and Levi. You will find that the whole thing really focused upon that. And what is the trouble? Oh, everything is wrong in Israel at the end. It is a wretched, miserable story: everything is breaking down, everything is wrong, there is nothing happy at all. And why? The Levites are not in their place, the Levites are not functioning, and the Lord's people are not giving the Levites their portion; and the Lord is so jealous about that, that everything else is allowed to go wrong.

But the conditions that obtained at the end had occurred repeatedly in the past. You recall the tragedy in the case of Uzzah and the ark. The Lord smote Uzzah, so that he died. Why? Because the Ark had been put upon a cart, when the Lord had prescribed that it should be carried by the Levites. The Lord is very jealous. Dear friends, it does matter, does it not, whether the Lord is jealous for us - whether the Lord is ready to stand by us, to uphold us, to be with us, to let it be known that "he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye" (Zech. 2:? There is something in that - to have the Lord on your side, to know that God is jealous over that to which you are committed, and fiercely jealous over it, that the Lord is not going to let it be set aside, the Lord is not going to let it be overlooked. Even if, in all innocence and in all good motive and good will, as with David and his cart, the principle of the Levites is forgotten, is overlooked, the Lord does not overlook it. This is something which is pre-eminent with the Lord, God is jealous for something; and what matters is that we are in that something for which God is jealous. Oh, to have the jealousy of God on our side in the work to which we are committed!

Now, the history of the Levites is a long and varied and mixed history. They were not always in good condition; they were not always in their right place, position and function. Sometimes they were incapable of ministering simply because they were involved in the bad state of the people of God. Sometimes they themselves were out of adjustment. It is a long and painful history. But what I want you to notice is this, that even in the last recorded phase of that history - a long history in which there are many dark chapters - even in the last phase, as we see it in Malachi, God has not given them up. The last word about them is that He will "purify the sons of Levi", after all. He has not abandoned them; He has not given them over. The Lord has made a covenant, and He is standing to it.

But it is not always a matter of the people. Here it is a matter of the ministry. There is some ministry which is of this kind, which has this importance and value in the sight of God. There is a particular kind of service to the Lord to which He is peculiarly committed, and, while those who are connected with it may change, may sometimes go wrong, the Lord is jealous for this thing, and He is not giving it up, He is not casting it aside. If that had been His way, where would the ministry of the Lord be today? Think of the Dark Ages, even of Christendom. Think of all those periods in this dispensation when things have been in a deplorable state, and the Lord has seemed to have little or nothing of this kind. But the Lord has never given it up, and He never will. The last chapter of the Old Testament sees the Lord coming back to it again. He is committed to it. It is a great thing to know that there is that which is of such importance to the Lord that if we come into it, we shall find God persisting in spite of failures, of weaknesses, of imperfections, of days of darkness, of seeming eclipses. God is going on with that thing.

There are things to which God has not committed Himself. There are those things which God has left, from which He has withdrawn; but there is that concerning His Son to which He has committed Himself, which He will never give up, no matter what happens. If we ask what that is - in a phrase, it is priestly ministry. We have to learn what priestly ministry is.

[Shammu]

The Chastening of the Sons of Levi

There is chastening connected with it. "He will purify the sons of Levi". Yes, chastening. But let us always keep a broad line between judgment and chastening. The Devil always tries to wipe out that difference, and interpret all chastening as judgment. Judgment is for rejecters of the Lord; chastening is for the accepters of the Lord. The form of the judgment may seem to be exactly alike for unsaved and saved: you cannot see any outward difference. The unsaved may suffer physical judgment for sin. The saved too may suffer physically - yet this is not judgment, but chastening. One is destructive, the other is constructive, and God's dealings with Levites are always on the constructive principle. Remember that. There may be suffering, there may be the fire purging and purifying, but it is always constructive. God is just using these ways to secure that upon which His heart is set.

Satan's Hatred of Levitical Ministry

This has been but an introductory word, but note one thing before we close: the hatred, the Satanic hatred, of this Levitical ministry. When Jesus began He was, as we have seen, about thirty years old, that is, of Levitical age, indicating that the ministry He was beginning was priestly ministry - the open Heaven attesting that this Person and this ministry were peculiarly precious to the Lord, beloved of God. What came next? The wilderness and Satan. And what was the point of assault? The very point upon which God had focused everything - the 'belovedness'. 'My Son, My Beloved'. "If thou be the Son..." He might just as well have said, 'If Thou be the Beloved' for that was the point of the thing. 'If you are beloved, if you are so precious to the Father...' "If thou be the Son..." Satan hates not only this Person, but this thing, Satan is not only against the Person, but he is against the ministry; and the one thing that he will always try to do, in order to cripple, destroy or nullify that ministry which is so precious to God, is, if we may put it this way, to becloud the belovedness.

Do you not realize how Satan is all the time trying to make you believe otherwise than that God loves you, that you are beloved of God? It is often the last thing that we can believe, is it not, that we are beloved of God? Satan is always busy from every angle to try to becloud our belovedness. If he cannot do it by direct assault, he does it by suggestion, by insinuation. Or he will do it by trying to cause us to slip up, make mistakes, go wrong, and then bringing upon us accusation, saying, 'You are no longer beloved of God'. His devices and his efforts are countless and unsearchable, with the one object, as with the Lord Jesus, so with those who are with the Lord Jesus as the sons of Aaron, as Levites, of somehow bringing a cloud, raising a question, over this preciousness to the Lord.

I use the word again because it is a good word and gets us a bit off our beaten track - the belovedness of Christ, transferred to His fellow-priests or His Levite sons, the beloved. Let Satan get in there and he has destroyed everything. If there should be one reading these lines who has lost the assurance that God loves him, you not only know the unspeakable misery of it, but, what is more, you know how you are put out of service - you know quite well that you would not attempt to serve the Lord. It is no use - you are paralysed until you know and are assured that the Lord loves you. If you have lost that assurance, you have lost your testimony, you have lost your ministry, you have lost everything, and that is the chief work of the Devil. Paul says: "he hath made us accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6, A.V.). That is the belovedness of Christ transferred to those who are in Him. Do not believe the Devil. "Evil company doth corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33), and if you have a talk with the Devil, and listen to him, your whole conduct will be affected and coloured by that. The one object the Devil has in view is to raise a question, nay, to establish in you a question, as to God's love and your belovedness to God - that is, personally.

And then he is after something more - he is after your ministry. You see, on that day when the Lord Jesus stepped out to His ministry, the Devil stepped out too, and said, 'Not only will I raise a question, if I can, about His relationship with God and God's relationship with Him, but by raising that question I will destroy this ministry, if I can, right at its birth'. You and I are no use to God if we have a question about either His love for us or His love for that to which we are committed. If we have any doubt about that, we are finished. This sense of what I have called 'belovedness' is essential, not only to life, but as an assurance and rest in service. It gave encouragement to the Levites to go quietly, assuredly and restfully about their work, and so they did. Day after day, by day and by night, they went on quietly with their ministry. To go on quietly persistently, assuredly, in peace, all rests upon this - the recognition that that into which I have been called by God is of infinite value to Him, and because I am called according to His purpose, I am beloved of God.

That is a simple word with which to begin, but it is basic to everything. May I just sum it up like this? The Lord is calling us to something which is not a comparative thing, but an absolute thing: which is not just something that, well, the Lord likes and will bless, but is that upon which all His heart is set, which means more than anything else to the Lord. May our hearts reach out for that in these days, and may the Lord show us what it is.

[Shammu]

Chapter 2 - Levitical Priesthood

"Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be mine own possession from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel" (Exodus 19:5,6, A.R.V.).

"And bring thou near unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office" (Exodus 28:1).

"Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ... But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession" (1 Peter 2:5,9).

"And he made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father" (Revelation 1:6).

"...and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests" (Revelation 5:10).

"Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ" (Revelation 20:6).

When we come to look into the Word of God, from the beginning to the end, to discover what the service of God really is, we find that it is always set forth in terms of priesthood, or what priesthood means. We are not concerned specifically with the priests or Levites of the Old Testament as a class or system or order in themselves. They are there to set forth spiritual meanings, and we are using them - that is, we are using the Word of God - to discover the spiritual meaning of service. I say that because these words - 'priest', 'Levite', and so on - suggest a subject, and they can be very technical. There is a great deal of what is technical connected with the priests and the Levites, and I am not attempting to deal with it. There are many technicalities to which we make little or no reference - for instance, the question as to where the priests end and the Levites begin. Sometimes they are put together and are called "the priests, the Levites": at other times the priests are put in one category and the Levites in another. But such technicalities are not concerning us just now.

All God's People Called to be a Serving People

What we want to get at is this: What is the service of God, and what are the principles and laws of that service? And so we approach this matter by way of looking inside the framework to secure the spiritual meaning. So, taking up this matter of the Levites, we begin with the fact that they represent or set forth the service of God. They set it forth in this way, that the Lord's people as a whole are called to be a serving people. This is quite clear from the passages which we have read, right through the Old Testament and right through the New Testament to the end. There is a very trite and hackneyed phrase, which has lost its edge by familiarity and constant use - 'We are saved to serve' - but that does mean what it says! It may perhaps seem unnecessary, and yet perhaps it may have a reviving or refreshing value, if I emphasize this point at the outset - that it is made abundantly clear by the whole Word of God, in both Testaments, right on to the end of the Bible, that the Lord's Church is called pre-eminently to be a serving Church.

But of course, this can only be true of the whole as it is true of all its parts - which just means that there is no such thing, in the thought and purpose of God, as an inactive, unserving member of the Church. If ever the Levites were not functioning, everything was wrong, and that means that, if you and I claim to be in the Church of God, we are, according to the very thought of God about His Church, supposed to be serving Levites. You will not take that name on yourself, I am quite sure. You will not go out into the world and tell people you are a Levite. You might perhaps tell them you were a missionary, or something like that. But it means that you are supposed to be a Levite, and if you look at the Levites and their history, you will see what God means you should be.

In the full unveiling and revelation of this truth, it comes out at last that priests and Levites were not, in the thought of God, a separate, detached, isolated body of people, but the whole nation, in the thought of God, was meant to be what they were. We will return to that presently, but just begin with this: that the nation - which is the Church, which is God's own possession - is, in God's thought, meant to be in active, Levitical service, in all that that means. We begin very low when we begin there. But let us begin right at the beginning, and challenge our hearts, and say, 'Now then, what does my Levitical priesthood, my Levitical service, amount to?' You ask your heart that before the Lord. What does it amount to? That is a very, very important question. We will not stay with it, but we begin with it.

The Levites, and their priesthood, bring right into view the fact that God's primary thought for a redeemed people is service. The service may be many-sided and varied, as we shall see, but service is the characteristic of the people of God, if His own thought for them is realized.

Bringing God and Man Together in One

But what is this service? When you ask, 'Now, what did the priests and Levites set forth as to the matter of service?', you have to say: It was nothing less than the bringing of God and man together in one. There had come about a rift between God and man. We know about that, we know where it took place, we know just what happened; but there it is. God and man are apart, there is a big gap between. And it is not only a gap, not merely distance, but there is a condition of positive conflict - conflict of natures, conflict of interests, conflict of realms - in short, enmity. Enmity is that which makes a distance. It is called 'alienation' (Eph. 2:12). God and man are at variance in their natures. And the whole service of the people of God, as set forth in the Levites and the priests, was to stand in the gap and put the hand of man into the hand of God, and the hand of God into the hand of man; to come between and to bring about union - of course, in virtue of sacrifice, in virtue of shed blood, but that is another aspect.

The service was thus to represent, to set forth, the fact that God does not accept this state of division. God never intended it, He does not accept it, and He has provided against it; and here are those who know in themselves, in their own history, in their own experience, what it means to have peace with God, to be united with God in life (as we were saying in our last study); to be there themselves, and so to set forth God's mind in this matter of union in a practical way.

That is service - not to talk about the doctrine of atonement and redemption and reconciliation, but to be that. The Church can have all the fundamental doctrines of atonement, and so on, and still not be a unifying factor itself, still be divided, still maintain divisions. The important thing about service is to unify, not to talk about it; to set forth the ground of oneness, and to live on that ground. We shall probably have more to say about that at another point.

[Shammu]

Preserving the Ground of God's Presence with Man

And then, as consequent upon that, the further object of service was to set forth and preserve the ground of God's presence with man. The whole issue of the Bible is just that - God's presence. The last thing in the Bible is the declaration: "The tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples" (Rev. 21:3). That is the end finally reached. It was always God's desire from the beginning to dwell with man, to be present. So the real service of God is to set that forth actually. If the Church were fulfilling its priestly ministry, wherever men and women came into it they would meet God. They would say: 'God is here. These people are not only concerned with correct doctrine and teaching and with proper practice and form. You meet God when you meet them.' We are failing of our service to God unless, as the effect of our being here, God is found in the midst of us - unless God is found in us first of all individually, and then, when a few individuals are together, He is all the more found.

That is the importance of relatedness in Christian life and fellowship, and that is the thing that Satan hates and is against - the gathering and abiding together, in life, in fellowship, in the Spirit, of the Lord's people. It is something very great. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I..." (Matt. 18:20). The real ministry, so to speak, is to provide a ground for God, and to bring God in so that He is found there.

May the Lord save us as a people from ever being an empty shell! The Lord save us unto this - that men know where to find God: if they want to find God, they know where to find Him. That is so very largely not true. Many go round, searching for God, wanting God. They try this place and they try that place - and go away disappointed. 'No, He is not there. The form may be all right, and much may be quite good, but I have not met God.' Do let us always, wherever we are, hold strongly to that, that when we come together, people are to find God amongst us. We are bent upon that - the presencing of God. This is a principle so clearly set forth in the early books of the Old Testament - of course in the first place in relation to Israel - the presencing of God.

Service in Relation to the Testimony of God

In the third place, the service of the priests and the Levites was in relation to the Testimony of God. The central object of their service, their work, their ministry, was the Ark of the Testimony. That was at the heart of everything; they gathered round that ultimately. It was the final thing, the ultimate thing. They were gathered round that, and they ministered in relation to that. The Ark was entrusted to them on their journeyings. There is much of detail - and very, very important detail - connected therewith, but we state again the simple truth, the simple inclusive fact, that their service was related to the testimony of God: and the testimony of God is the testimony of Jesus, just as that Ark was in type and figure the Lord Jesus in His inclusive, essential, mediatorial Person. It is the Lord Jesus, it is the testimony of Jesus.

And what a testimony that Ark bore! Let that Ark come up against anything, and see what happens. Let it come up against the Philistines or the Philistines come up against it, and see what happens. Let Uzzah put forth his hand and touch that Ark, and see what happens. The testimony of Jesus is not something in word alone. It is not a theory, it is not a type, it is not a figure. It is an impact, and the service of the Lord is to register the impact of Jesus Christ. We fail altogether, if, with all that we may do and say, that impact is missing. Oh, let us pray for a recovery of the impact of Christ, that by our presence there may be a registration of Him.

The Lord Jesus, when He was here in Person on the earth, could be nowhere without registering His presence. Demons cried out at once before He had said anything. All the evil forces were stirred. Men governed by those evil forces could not keep silent: they found that they had to do something about Him - anything to get rid of Him, to quench Him. On the other hand, people in need sensed that their need would be met in Him. He just could not be present and be hid.

Service, then, means bringing Christ in as a registration upon situations. That is what the Church is here for, and what you and I are here for: we are here in relation to "the testimony of Jesus". When John used that phrase, as he did so often, especially in the book of the Revelation - he said he was in Patmos "for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus" - he simply meant that he had been sent there because he stood for the testimony of Jesus. It would be far better to be sent to Patmos than to be ignored. If men can be indifferent, if they can just leave us alone, and not send us either to Patmos or to 'Coventry', there is something wrong with us. If we are really doing the work of God in a priestly way, something has got to happen, even if it is cruel opposition.

[Shammu]

A Representation of God's Full Thought

A further thing about this service so far as the Levites were concerned was that they embodied and set forth in representation God's full thought concerning all His people. Let me remind you of the events in Exodus 32, which we were speaking of in our first study in this series. There we see a crisis, a crisis through and by which the Levites came into their place. What had happened was that God had said beforehand (Exod. 19:5,6) that Israel should be to Him a kingdom of priests. That was the Divine thought. And then He followed by saying: 'Bring near Aaron and his sons' (Exod. 28:1) - the Divine thought taking shape. And then Moses goes into the mount, and is with God forty days and forty nights. Toward the end of that time the people weary of his absence, and there then follow the events of which we read in chapter 32.

The people call Aaron and ask him to make them gods that should go before them - 'for what has happened to this Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we know not.' And Aaron gives way, weakly, very weakly, and has to cover it up with a lie. If you compromise, you will always have to add a lie presently. And he makes them a calf of gold. (You notice the lie. It says definitely that he worked it: he wrought it with a chisel (vs. 4). When he described what happened to Moses, he said he threw the gold into the fire and, as though by magic, a calf came out (vs. 24). You always have to resort to magic, if you get yourself into a tight corner by prevarication and lies and so on. That is by the way.)

Moses came down, heard as he came down, saw, was very wroth, and challenged Aaron, as to why - why - why he should have let the people in for this sin, with its inevitable judgment. And then Moses went and stood in the gate, and threw out an uncompromising challenge. (Notice the form of his challenge: 'Whoso is on Jehovah's side, to me!' (vs. 26). So there is another side that is not Jehovah's. That is very discriminating at this point. Whose side is this? Well, that touches very, very vitally upon the whole matter of service. However, let us go on.) At that point the sons of Levi went over to Moses in the gate. Moses said: 'Put every man his sword on his side, and go throughout the whole camp, and slay every man his brother, his friend, his neighbour'. And the Levites did so, and they did it thoroughly, and at that point the tribe of Levi was set apart for this ministry.

Now, God's thought was that all the people should be like that. He had said so (Exod. 19:5,6). But the people as a whole failed - failed God and failed of their calling, their vocation - and so God raised up, so to speak, this 'Israel within an Israel', and thus the tribe of Levi became the embodiment or representation of God's full thought for all His people.

Representation: that is what is true of them in more senses than one. You know that it was the firstborn in all the houses, the homes, the families of Israel, who were the priests. Now the tribe of Levi takes the place of the firstborn in all Israel. The half shekel of silver (Exod. 30:13) becomes the symbol that they have taken the place of the firstborn. So they become in representation 'the Church of the firstborn ones' (Heb. 12:23). The very number of the tribe is also significant in this matter. It means representation, if you look at it. We will not dwell upon that, or go further with it; it is one of those details, but it is significant. The point is that it was when the nation as a whole failed that the Levites were taken, to become those who set forth - by embodying in themselves - God's full thought for His people, that they should be serving priests.

Now, this is a very delicate point, but we have to face facts: and the fact is this - that the whole of the Lord's people, although redeemed, although His by redemption and by atoning Blood, are not fulfilling this priesthood. The people of God as a whole are not living up to their calling, are not fulfilling their heavenly vocation. That was true in Paul's time. The ministry of Paul was so largely - we might say mainly - to get Christians to live up to their calling. His prayers for believers were that they might apprehend their calling, 'the hope of His calling'. So the fact has been, from so soon after the beginning, that, as a whole, the Lord's people do not express His full thought.

But God reacts to that failure, and sets to work to get those who will. The peril has always been, and it is a peril into which many have fallen, to say, 'Well, things are as they are, everything has broken down, it is a state of failure: we had better make the best of a bad job, accept the situation, and do the best we can.' God has never so compromised, and He never will. He did not just patch up that situation at Sinai. He definitely and concretely reacted to it in the Levites. Now, do not interpret that necessarily as a separate body of people. That is our peril - to think that here are the general people of God, and here is another class of people who are on a pedestal, very much better than the general. Beware of that. But, while we say that with great emphasis, we also say, with equal emphasis, that God's heart is set upon finding amongst His people those who do answer to His full thought.

So that the Levites represented what God meant, and not what God found later on, or what came about in a general way; and that is service to God. And it is a very costly form of service. While God really seeks to have 'all men saved and come to a knowledge of the truth', His heart is really set upon a people who satisfy Him as to the fullest thought that He has ever expressed, and that is priestly service: representation, in the midst of failure, in the midst of departure, in the midst of weakness, in the midst of tragedy, of that which satisfies God. Take that to heart. That is service - service on the highest plane, service in the fullest realm. Service, in the most essential sense, is not to be doing a lot of things for God, but to be sure of what God wants most, and then bend everything to that.

The Levites Related to the Whole Matter of Life

Then, further, the Levites in their service were related to the whole matter of life. We touched on this a little in our previous study. The great characteristic of the Levitical service was that everything should be living. 'Livingness' was the great feature. They were really up against death. Death, the great nullifier - spiritual death - had entered by sin, and they were up against it; and their ministry was, on the one hand, to nullify the power of death, and, on the other, to make everything live, to see that everything lived. Everything was to be living. I do want you to grasp this. It is so important that 'livingness' characterize the Church in every part of its life and activity.

We have the Lord's table. It was there in symbol in the Tabernacle. Is this a form, is this a rite, is this the 'Lord's Supper', is this the 'Communion Service'? What is it? It is supposed to be, meant to be, a ministration of life, a testimony of life. If you and I come to the Lord's table and that does not mean to us 'livingness', if there is not something about this that is living, well, it has missed its meaning. We are a people of the table. The table is supposed to be a living thing: so much so that in Corinth, because of a touching of that table in an unworthy manner, the people met something. Many were sick and some died (1 Cor. 11:30). This thing is living. It is as though the Lord would say: 'You cannot just come to this, touch this, without it meaning something, and without your meeting something.' It should be like that.

Oh, may God hallow the table! God make the table to live! Lord, make the table a challenge! Lord, make people afraid of that table, if they are not going to adjust to its meaning! Yes, it would not be a bad thing if there were such an effect, such an impact about this, that, if there were carelessness or wrongness of approach and wrongness of state in coming to it, it led to actual suffering or affliction. But that is the dark and cloudy side, the shadowed side. On the other side, it should be living. Theirs it was to keep things living.

And everything else must be like that in the house, in the tabernacle. Is it the altar of incense - is it the prayer life? We need a word on this, friends. There should be something tremendously living about our prayer life, and our prayer life together as the Lord's people. We do not just come and say prayers and offer requests - no, no, no, it is a question of life, of effect, of 'livingness'. Is it the lampstand of truth, of revelation, of illumination? Is it the revelation of Jesus Christ? Oh, there is a great deal of difference in teaching. We may have good addresses, very good teaching, all very true, absolutely true; and yet - and yet - what have we got afterward? What do we take away? Do we go away more living than we came? Have we met life that has challenged us, exposed us, illuminated us, elevated us? This is the service of God. Oh, to have companies of people, the characteristic of whom is livingness: livingness in prayer, livingness in fellowship, livingness in teaching - all living!

That is power. The Levites did minister in the power of this life. It is something tremendous. Let anybody come in, interfere with this, take this on, and see what they meet. There was power present in their service.

[Shammu]

The Continuity of Life

And then a further thing about the life was its continuity. God made a covenant, as we read in Malachi, with Levi, a covenant of life and peace; and although Levi deviated often, seemed as it were to go underground, and was often in a state most reprehensible, yet the Lord goes on, and in the end Levi survives. Although the old typical system passes with the old dispensation, there is more life in the New Testament than there was then. The Lord Jesus, as the great Levite, as we saw in our previous study, commenced His Levitical ministry at the age of thirty, just as the Levites did - and oh, the life of this Levite! Was Paul a Levite? Surely he was, and many another.

But note, this life of the covenant goes on. What is the principle of continuity? What is the principle of succession? It is not that someone has a position or an office, and when he dies someone else has to take his place, go into his office and position, and so on, in a kind of formal, ecclesiastical, 'apostolic succession' principle? Not that at all. The principle of succession in the Word of God is Divine life. As soon as Divine life departs, you had better shut down the whole thing. Any church or system that has not the life has lost the very reason for its existence. The principle of continuity is life. The Lord save us from losing the tremendous factor of life and becoming resolved into a mere 'thing' with a teaching and form.

And when we have said that, we need only say further that life - this livingness, this power, this continuity, which are the elements of this life - is incorruptible. That means that it is a life of absolute purity and holiness. As soon as corruption is allowed to come in, the life is suspended. The Lord will not let His life go on where there is corruption. Holiness is essential to life. Allow sin to persist and you find the life is suspended. The Lord will not go on with us.

So the inclusive characteristic of the Levites, as the Lord's servants, was life.

Spiritual Warfare

I mention just one other thing: the matter of spiritual warfare. I wonder if you have taken note of this? Going back to the passage in the book of Numbers, 4:3 "...from thirty years old and upward even until fifty years old, all that enter upon the service, to do the work in the tent of meeting" - you notice that the margin tells us that "the service" is literally "the warfare", "to do the work in the tent of meeting". "The warfare... in the tent!'

Now, that indicates a difference of kinds and realms of warfare. Others in Israel were called for the warfare of the nations. They could start at the age of twenty. They were more numerous: every young man, as soon as he reached the age of twenty, was eligible for the army. The Levites started ten years later at the age of thirty, but it says that they entered the warfare for work in the tent of meeting. This is a different kind, a different realm of warfare. It is not conflict with the world. They had to meet the world and the nations: Joshua became their commander-in-chief in that realm; but here is another kind. It is an inner kind of warfare. I am not going to make a lot of it, except to point out this: that, when any of us begin on this basis to serve God in relation to His full thought for His people, we meet a peculiar kind of opposition. It is an internal kind. Such ministry has to be fulfilled amidst strange opposition, an opposition that is directed against the Christ dwelling within.

Many of you know that that is true. We put it in many different ways from time to time. When you become a Christian, you know that you are precipitated into conflict with the world: you are up against it, and the world is up against you, and you become a soldier of Jesus Christ in that realm. But when you become one who is going to serve God in relation to all His intention concerning His Church, you meet something other - and, mark you, you will meet it amongst the Lord's people themselves.

There was a time when there was a movement to oust the Levites from their particular position by people in Israel who wanted to usurp that position. They were jealous of them, they criticized them, and took steps to nullify them. God met that movement in His own jealousy for this very thing. He must have His full thought represented. He was very jealous about it. But the point is this, that there is a strange, unexpected kind of warfare related to the full purpose of God. It is spiritual. It is not carnal warfare at all. It is not with the world. Give it terms from Scripture if you like, but the fact is that you find yourself having to fulfil your ministry in the midst of opposition which comes from very much nearer than the world.

Spiritual warfare: oh, yes, it is so wonderful to glimpse the great eternal purpose of God, the "unsearchable riches of Christ", the "exceeding greatness of his power" - these superlatives, all true. Yes, but do not forget that while half of the letter to the Ephesians is occupied with the superlatives of Divine purpose and calling and blessing, the other half contains superlatives in relation to conflict. You get conflict of a fuller, higher and more terrible nature in the 'Ephesian' realm, if I may put it like that, than you do anywhere else, because that brings into view God's ultimate purpose for His people.

[Shammu]

The Spirituality of the Levites

Well, this is the meaning of service, the cost and nature of service. It is tremendously real to God. So we gather it all up into one word. Here is particular and peculiar responsibility. Look again at the Levites - not as a class; dismiss that from your thoughts - and see their spiritual meaning. I would like, in closing, to dwell briefly upon some things which seem essential to complete and round off this presentation, such as the spirituality of the Levites. Spiritual men is what they represent. Now it is not possible - I say this with hesitation and with regret, but it is true - it is not possible to say that all the Lord's servants are spiritual people, really spiritual people. Many may be very devout, very much in earnest, but as persons they are not all spiritual persons.

Look at it like this. When these Levites came into being, as in that thirty-second chapter of Exodus, on what ground did they come into being as functioning Levites? Well, the whole nation, because Moses remained in the mount so long, had lost patience. Why did they lose patience? Because they wanted things seen, and they could not endure things not seen. The principle of the life of Moses was that he "endured, as seeing him who is invisible" (Heb. 11:27). That was something they could not do. They must see; things must be tangible, must be present, must be within the realm of the senses. Religious things - yes; things of God - yes; Moses - yes; but it must be within the compass of our senses, that we can see and handle and have evidence before our very eyes.

Now spirituality is just the opposite of that. It is going on with God in faith. Jesus is in Heaven. "Though now ye see him not", says Peter, "yet..." (1 Pet. 1:. We are going on. Peter's line of things is different from Paul's, as we know. Peter's line of things is 'pilgrims and strangers here'. Peter consistently says: 'though now we see him not'; 'we are pilgrims and strangers.' 'Our greater Moses is in Heaven, but we are going on our pilgrimage'. Paul's line of things is 'seated in the heavenlies in Christ'. Both sides are right. But the Israelites could not go on until they could see. They must have a god that they see. So - 'make us gods to go before us'.

But alas! they do not see what they are doing, what they are letting in. What was all the gold for that they had brought out of Egypt? It was for the Tabernacle and the service of God. It was the gold of the sanctuary. Satan found advantage by their carnality, and stole the gold of the sanctuary, and turned it to his own worship in the place of the worship of God. Spirituality sees through. These Levites were spiritual men. They saw through this. Spirituality sees something more, sees the ultimate significance of things. Oh, for men with spiritual discernment - men who can see through and get hold of the ultimate significance, who can see where this is leading, how this will work out, where this comes from, what this means, what is really the nature of this thing. Carnality and spirituality, you see, are two different things amongst the people of God, and the Levites were spiritual men, the embodiment of spiritual perception.

Again, work out this principle of spirituality. What was required of them? "Gird every man his sword upon his thigh" - 'and slay every man his enemy'? 'Get even with that man with whom you have had a grudge for so long'? No - 'slay every man his brother and his friend and his neighbour'. Brother, blood-kin; friend, neighbour; heart-relationship. This is a test of spirituality. You need not make it literal, unless you like. Sometimes it comes down to that, if we are putting father, mother, sister, brother, children in the place of the Lord; sometimes it works down to that very literally. But spirituality means that nothing that is of our natural life is allowed to influence us when Divine principle is at stake, however dear, however costly, whatever it involves. Friends and dear ones must not stand in the way of God's full purpose. If they have come across the purpose of God, or if they threaten it, I am sorry, but I must take the sword: and as I take the sword to them, I take it to my own heart. But: "Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it" (Luke 17:33). You know that that word 'life' also means 'soul'. The sword to our own souls - that is spirituality. It is very searching.

Well, all this, as I was saying, amounts to taking responsibility for the Lord's highest interests. It is costly, as the Levites knew. It was by sacrifice, it was by blood, it was by tears. Yes, it was costly; but therein lay the preciousness to the Lord. He is jealous for that which answers to His own heart most fully. The Lord give us grace to be true servants - true 'Levites'.

[Shammu]

Chapter 3 - Some Lessons from Zacharias

Reading: Luke 1:5-25,57-67.

The Lord is ever desirous of making His people know His real purpose in fulness concerning them. We need to come to a very settled position on this matter. It is not a question of how the Lord's people may be at any given time. It may be that, as we have read here concerning Zacharias and his wife, and the people gathered there at that time, conditions are fairly good. We might think that this is quite a beautiful picture, that is just how things ought to be. There is the servant of the Lord correctly and faithfully fulfilling his ministry. There is the temple order being carried on correctly; there are people gathered in the court, apparently in a great company, giving themselves to prayer. There is a spirit of devotion, and other characteristics, which present a picture which might be thought to be perfectly satisfactory.

But it is not a matter of whether at any given time things are apparently quite good, answering to much that the Lord has shown to be His mind, or whether things are maybe not so good, or even bad, as has been the case at times with the people of God. The point is always: Is this, after all, what God really has as His end concerning His people? It may be very good, and yet it may after all be only comparative - for that is the upshot of this very incident. It was good, yes, but it was not all that God wanted. God had something more than that in view, however good it might be. The thing that governs all the way along is the full thought of God from the beginning, and until you and I have settled that, we have not settled many things. What we need to ask is: What more is there that is yet required by the Lord for completeness, for fulness?

And so our object must be, not to seek the comparatively good, not some more, some extra, some further light and truth, but to be with the Lord for His ultimate, His full, His final, His complete intention. The peril is to look upon what is very good and has the blessing of the Lord upon it, and settle down, and say, 'Well, why want any more than that, why not be content, why not just get on with that? Why not leave aside all the other questions, those disturbing questions, very disturbing questions, and just get on with what is so obviously quite good in the blessing of the Lord?' No, the Lord shows by His Word, Old Testament and New Testament, that there is still something ahead, still something more, and it has never been the Lord's way to let His people settle down with anything less. That is what is brought to us so clearly here.

God's New Thing

Let us look at this story again. The traditional order is being followed out meticulously. The priest is doing his work, the people are gathered to prayer, the temple routine is being pursued, the service of God is going on. And then, right in the midst of that, God breaks in from Heaven, and He makes it clear that He is purposing to take a further step forward in relation to the promised Messiah. God is here seen to be taking another step, and a very big step this time, in relation to His Son Jesus Christ. This story can be gathered very largely into those words of the seventeenth verse - "to make ready a people prepared for the Lord". But all this - the temple, the services, the priesthood, the people - was not this a state of preparedness for the Lord? The story says, 'No - only comparatively.' Something more and something else is required. John the Baptist must come in. Another very definite step by God is about to be taken.

Now God has always appointed to move toward His end along the line of priesthood, and all that that means, and so, in taking this further step, God moves in the direction of His appointed way, and, consistently with this, He makes His mind and His intention known. He lets the priesthood know, quite definitely, quite clearly, quite precisely, what His thoughts and His intentions are.

And He is immediately confronted with an obstruction. Right in that very place He finds His difficulty. Just where He ought to have a clear way, He finds the way is blocked. In the very midst of that which bears His Name, which stands in the long tradition of Divine things, He meets His main difficulty. A difficulty arises instantly with Zacharias - in the very priesthood, in the very house of God, and in the order of things which obtains - and it is almost an affront to Him.

No Natural Ground of Confidence

Now, what were the features of this obstacle, this rebuff to the Lord? For it was nothing less than a rebuff that the Lord met here. If we could really catch the tone of Zacharias, I am sure we should discern something that was a challenge to the Lord, a question. What were the features of it?

First of all, this thing that God is making known, this thing that God purposes to do, has no natural ground whatsoever upon which to rest confidence. That is very searching. The whole matter of confidence arises. The first question raised is: 'Can we be sure? What about the reliability of this thing?' People begin at once to look round for the ground of confidence, and if they do not find it according to their established ideas, then this thing is doubtful, it is open to question. This is not in the recognized and established way.

That is what arises with Zacharias and Elisabeth. The recognized, the established way, is the way of nature. But the way of nature has no place here at all. It is quite in another realm. Elisabeth's childlessness, and their advanced age - it all puts aside any kind of hope, any ground of confidence, so far as the natural is concerned. And therefore, it not being according to what has always been, and what is always regarded as the right way, the regular way, the natural order - therefore it is a doubtful proposition, and even God has that doubt presented to Him. 'This is not according to tradition, this is not according to what we have always been led and taught to believe to be God's way of doing things. This is so out of the usual!' Is that an argument with God? Let us pursue it.

'This is far too spiritual, this is far too otherworldly, this is far too much for the earth! This makes demands for factors altogether beyond our comprehension!' Is that an argument to present to God? When God is going to do a new thing, has He to confine it to human understanding, even to the understanding of religious tradition at its best? Has He ever done it? Must God reduce His infinite purposes concerning His Son to the comprehension of man's mind? Must He? Then it will become the measure of man and not the measure of God. But man finds this a point of great offence. It stumbled Zacharias and it stumbles the Lord's people. There is something in this that is altogether beyond us, something about this that we cannot grasp, we cannot understand. It is off the beaten track. It is not what we are used to, it is not what we have been accustomed to - so much argument. And because of that, because this thing is beyond us, beyond our comprehension and understanding, therefore it is doubtful, it is questionable.

Let us put this on the positive side. We have got to accommodate ourselves to the fact that the greatest things that God will ever do will always be beyond us, beyond our power of understanding, beyond our attainment in knowledge - even in the things of God. God is always going to take us out of our depth with His new thing. He is always going to prove that we in our own resources cannot follow Him, this is too much for us. God is making demands for which we can make no supply. He has got us completely out of our realm. That is God's way. That was the trouble with Zacharias, and so he presented God with this objection, this question. It was the fixed position of the traditional order of things that caused the difficulty with Zacharias.

[Shammu]

The Obstacle of Pride

And that fixed position had a very unfortunate effect. Think of the superiority and pride of Zacharias. He is in the presence of an archangel from Heaven - "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God" - who has come down right alongside of Zacharias, and made an announcement concerning the will of God, and Zacharias has the effrontery to call him into question, simply because his position is so fixed. 'It has always been like this - this is the understood way of things. This other is so much outside the realm of our understanding, and therefore....' What pride can be ours, when we think we have it all and know it all, and have our position so fixed that even God Almighty does not stand a chance, because we have boxed the compass of spiritual truth. We have got the whole thing so set, so fixed, that the archangel Gabriel cannot move us.

Is that not terrible? Here is the priesthood arguing with an archangel! But that is spiritual pride. It was for that that judgment fell upon Zacharias. It always does fall upon spiritual pride. God cannot tolerate spiritual superiority, this terrible lack of adjustableness and submission, such as was shown in Zacharias - in a member of the very priesthood. If only we were broken, if only we were pliable, if only we were open enough for the Lord to do what He wants to do, whether we understand it or not, whether it comes within the compass of what has been in the past or not, or what is new or not, and say, 'Lord, this is beyond me - but, Lord, if You want to do it, I am with You for it', what things God could do, and how much more swiftly He could do them.

Testimony Suspended Until Adjustment Made

In the incident before us, God went on, but the priest's ministry became merely formal, inarticulate and tentative, until the lesson was learnt. I said 'formal' - he finished his course and went home. It seems to say to me that Zacharias was only wanting to get this job done to go home. He had to stay it out, he had to go on with the routine of the thing; but it had become a mere performance, and he was longing for the day when he could just leave it and go home. "When the days of his ministration were fulfilled, he departed unto his house." The whole thing had become empty form, it had become inarticulate, dumb.

The point is this, that the real testimony was suspended until adjustment was made to the situation - until there was a recognition of the Divine, the heavenly, the spiritual, the supernatural, that which was outside of man's power of comprehension and execution. For, after all, the argument seems to have been, 'If we cannot do it, then it will never be done.' And that is very much the attitude of systematized religion. If it cannot do it itself in its own way, then the thing never can be done. And so the testimony is in suspense.

The Obstacle of Convention

Now, when God moves from Heaven in relation to His Son and all those fulnesses which yet lie ahead concerning Him, what do we find? We find that His movements are not according to convention. Let that be settled. God does not move forward according to convention. God's great movements are always very unconventional movements. God refuses to be put into a box. He demands liberty to take us beyond any limits that we may impose upon Him. So often convention is God's main obstruction. The spiritual, the heavenly nature of God's developing movements is altogether beyond the understanding of men; and because man cannot understand it, he does not believe in it. He doubts it, he questions it, he throws suspicions upon it, he raises issues as to its soundness, if he cannot understand it, and therefore it is not acceptable to man, it is put aside.

God's Act a Complete Break With the Natural

But note: the instrument to be used - in this case John the Baptist - is God's act, and wholly God's act, not man's. That is the issue of this thing. If God is going to do something peculiarly related to the final fulness of His Son, it will be His act, uniquely God's act. John the Baptist was God's act, not the act of Zacharias or Elisabeth, nor of them jointly, nor of any other means or instrumentality. "A man, sent from God, whose name was John" (John 1:6). 'He shall be filled with the Holy Spirit from his birth.'

And John, being God's act, represents a complete break with the natural. That is seen in his very name. The name (the Old Testament Johanan) means 'God's gift', or 'God's favour'. When he was born, all the people of tradition said, 'Of course, his name is Zacharias: that carries on the old tradition, that secures the future in relation to the past.' But Elisabeth, the principle of spiritual discernment, said, 'No, not at all. His name is to be John.' And when they asked Zacharias about it, he said, "His name is John!" 'We are not going to call him John - he is already called John.' It meant a complete break with tradition not to take his father's name. When God moves and raises up an instrument, so often it is a complete break with what men expect and demand.

Finally, if you do not accept it, if you do not believe it, if you do not come on to God's ground, that is an end of your testimony - you will be dumb. You may go on with your work, you may continue in the old system, but your days are numbered. You may uphold the old tradition, but in the true sense of testimony, you are dumb, you have not got a living message. The simple principle is of very wide application. If you do not believe God, then you have lost your testimony, and you will not have a testimony, and if you are dumb it is because somewhere or other you have doubted God, argued with God, answered back to God, tried to reason with God. A real living testimony comes of faith. As soon as we begin to allow questions as to God's ways and purposes, methods and means, we shall lose our testimony, we shall become silent, our ministry will go.

But that, as I say, is a very wide and far application. We must be in line with God in His full purpose, though we may not understand, it may be altogether beyond us and our resources. We may see in nature no hope or prospect at all: yet, knowing that God means this, we believe God, and our mouths are opened and the ministry is given. May the Lord teach us what this means.

[Shammu]

Chapter 4 - The Blue of Heaven

I would ask you to turn to God's picture book, the Old Testament, in two places: "And thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue" (Exodus 28:31).

"Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of each border a cord of blue" (Numbers 15:38).

Now let us turn over to that part of the Word of which those passages are the illustrations.

"Having then a great high priest, who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:14,15).

"...else must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Hebrews 9:26).

I referred to the Old Testament as 'God's picture book', for indeed it is full of pictures, illustrations, representations of all kinds, of Divine, spiritual, heavenly realities. The illustrations pass, but that which they illustrate remains. God took hold of the picturesque Oriental mind, that kind of mentality which just must have pictures and illustrations and figures of speech, and turned it to very great account in setting forth the eternal realities which are the interpretation of them. So we have in the Old Testament a great number of things - names, people, places, colours, and so on - all used to illustrate some Divine, eternal truth; and, in the midst of that galaxy of symbolism, we find this one, in its two aspects. "And thou shalt make... the ephod all of blue" (the ephod was the high priest's main garment); and then: 'Speak to the children of Israel, that throughout their generations they make them fringes upon their garments, and a cord of blue.'

So that here you have a reflection, in every individual comprising the people of God, of what was true of the high priest's main garment. You look at his robe, the robe of the ephod, as it is called, and you see that it is of blue throughout, and you look at every man, woman and child of the people of God, and you find they all have as it were a bit of the priest's robe somewhere on their garment. It all corresponds.

Blue a Symbol of Heaven

Now, blue has quite a large place in the Old Testament. Blue is a symbol of that which belongs to Heaven. There are two or three places where that is made quite clear. For instance, in Exodus 24, we read that Moses and Aaron and seventy of the elders of Israel went up into the mountain where God was, "and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone" (vs. 10). Sapphire, of course, is blue. And then we come to the prophecies of Ezekiel. In the very first chapter, the same thing is said again. The prophet had a vision of the throne in Heaven, "as the appearance of a sapphire stone" (vs. 26). We find the sapphire mentioned again right at the end of the New Testament, in the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation. Blue, then, sets forth what is of Heaven, what is heavenly. So that this high priest, with his robe all of blue, is meant, in the thought of God, to point to that One of whom we read later - Jesus Christ, who is our "great high priest, who has passed through the heavens" (Heb. 4:14) - our heavenly High Priest, who is in Heaven.

And He has entered there on the ground, and only on the ground, that He has made a complete and full atonement. The high priest in the Old Testament could never go into the Most Holy Place except on the Day of Atonement with the precious blood of atonement, and that is a figure. The Lord Jesus made a full atonement by His Cross for all sin and sins, and has passed into the very presence of God: not into a symbolic presence, as in the Old Testament, but into the real presence, the actual presence, of God; and there, as this letter to the Hebrews says, "he ever liveth to make intercession" (Heb. 7:25). He is fulfilling His high-priestly work there on our behalf. Aaron, then, the high priest of old, was a type or figure of Christ, our High Priest who is now in Heaven. The emphasis is upon the heavenly nature and heavenly work of the Lord Jesus now.

Let us consider this robe all of blue.