Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

 Judas gathers up man, man to whom is open all that God has, man who is brought into touch with all the good and perfect will of God, and yet in himself the most awful failure; for this man, when he comes to his fulness, will betray his Lord, he is so hopeless. Man in himself, even though the mercies of God may go out to him, will arrive at this. This is a fearful end. “Yea, mine own familiar friend... which did eat of my bread,” says the Psalmist, “hath lifted up his heel against me” (Ps. 41:9). Thus will this man do amidst the very wealth of the grace of God.

Here is Judas representing one who has been brought into touch with the Lord, and to whom all the blessings are open that are open to the rest of the Lord’s own, and this is how he turns out. It is a picture of man in himself. Is it not true? The full development of old Adam, of the first Adam, in whom God does not dwell, is here shown to us. Just at the point where this man is surrounded with all the advantages, all the facilities, all the blessings, all the opportunity, all that could have been his, just at that point he goes out to betray his Lord: “...and it was night” (John 13:30). There is a world of meaning in that.

The Heavenly Man of God’s Election

Instantly that man has gone out the Lord Jesus says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified....” What does this mean? This is God’s answer to all that. God has another Man, Whose path is to be wholly different from that tragedy, that dark calamity, a Son of Man Who can be glorified. God has prepared His own Man to take the place of this other man, as soon as he has reached his end: and what an evil end it is! Do you see what is signified in the end of Judas? When he goes out God brings in His Man Who can be glorified.

Do you see why the Lord Jesus chose Judas? Do you see why it is that when he was gone out Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified?” There is the one who represents the Adam man and what he comes to in spite of all God’s grace and mercy which is at his command. Until there is something in him other than himself, that is what he comes to. And just when that nature, that man, that race is seen in its full awfulness, its full outworking, lifting its heel in treachery against the God of all grace; just when that man reaching fulness goes out into the dark, the eternal night, God begins His new day by bringing in His new Man to take his place.

What is the secret? What kind of man will be glorified? We have seen the man who cannot be glorified, who goes out into the darkness. What kind of man is he who can be glorified? What is the principle and secret of His glorifying? It is that God is in him. What is the glorifying of the Lord Jesus? It is the breaking forth and manifesting of the Father in Him, of that secret which makes Him other than the type represented by Judas. The hope of glory in His case, the certainty of glory, was the Father dwelling in Him. “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him....” That is a full-orbed statement about the glorifying of the Son of Man. It is remarkable that this statement should be found in the Gospel by John, in which the Lord Jesus is pre-eminently set forth as the Son of God.

The Glorifying of the Corporate Heavenly Man

Now, of course, we come to feel the benefit and the power of this, when it is transferred from the personal Heavenly Man to the corporate Heavenly Man. So the Apostle says: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith...” (Eph. 3:17); “...Christ in you, the hope of glory...” (Col. 1:27). We read at the beginning of the Letter to the Ephesians that we are “...a habitation of God in the Spirit” (2:22). What does this mean in its value and out-working? This Body, so created and living upon that fact, is as indestructible as Christ Himself, is as certain of victory as was Christ. On the principle that Christ dwells in the heart by faith, this Body can enter into wrestling with principalities and powers, world rulers of this darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies, and come out victor on the field.

What is the secret of the glorifying of the Church, His Body, the corporate Man, and what is the nature of the glorifying? It is the same thing. It is the manifestation of the secret, the coming out from secrecy into open display of that which is true, of Christ within. During the course of this dispensation, the secret is in the Church, in the members of Christ, but “...the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not” (1 John 3:1). Looked at from the outside we are very little different from any other people in the world. Yet the secret is there, and this secret means that if you touch that one, or that church, you touch God. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” said the Lord, when Saul was touching His members. He is in His members. You have to reckon with Him. They are indestructible, they cannot be destroyed. We are not talking about the destroying of the body. The true Church is an indestructible entity. When Satan has done his worst, that Church will still stand triumphant, and will abide for ever, when he and all his shall have been banished from the universe.

At the end of this dispensation which has held this hidden secret, there will be an unveiling of the Christ in His Church, when it appears with Him in glory, and it will be glorified on the same principle as that on which He was glorified.

[Shammu]

The Essential Basis of the Believer’s Everyday Life

Now, there is something that we have to take to our own hearts out of these inclusive factors. We have to live all the time on this basis that we have set forth, and as we do so the enemy’s power is absolutely rendered nil. Our trouble is that we do not live upon this basis. We live so much upon ourselves. We live upon our own feelings, our own conditions, our own state, anything and everything that is ourselves, and because we do that we are simply played with by the Devil. When we get into our own mood, what a mess he makes of us. When we get into our own feelings, or our own thoughts what havoc there is. Anything that is ourselves, if we get into that, and live on that, will give the enemy an opportunity to do as he likes. Whenever believers get down into themselves, on to the ground of what they are, if it is only for a moment, they begin to lose their balance, their poise, their rest, their peace, their joy, and they are tossed about of the Devil at his will. They may come to the place where they even wonder whether they are saved. Let us remember that the part of us which still belongs to the fallen creation, and will not survive, is the playground of the enemy, and it is of no use our trying to make it survive.

We have, for instance, a physical life. Within the compass of this natural, physical life as a part of the old creation, anything is possible. Mental darkness is possible. The upsetting of our nervous system can be of such a kind as to make us feel that hell rages in our very being. Anything is possible of moods, and feelings, and sensations, or of utter deadness and numbness, and if we live in that realm the Devil plays havoc. He encamps upon such things at once, if we take our natural condition as the criterion. There is no hope of glory in that natural realm.

How is the enemy to be defeated, to be nullified, to be robbed of his power? On the same principle as in the life of the Lord Jesus, by our living on the Father. We must live on the indwelling Christ. Our attitude will have to be continually toward the Lord: Lord, in me Thou art other than I am; Thou art not what I am; Thou art other than this mood, than this feeling, than this absence of feeling; Thou art other than all these thoughts, other than I am! I am dead, so far as my feelings are concerned, but Thou art other than that, Thou art living! I am feeling dark, Thou art the light, and Thou art in me! This is me, this is not the Lord! If only you and I will learn steadily (it will take time, it will be progressive) to live on in Christ, on what He is, on the fact that He is other than we are—not upon our experience of this, but the naked fact that He is within us—if we will steadily learn to live on that basis, by that great Divine reality, then the enemy has nothing in us. The Lord Jesus was able to say, “...the prince of the world cometh; and he hath nothing in Me...” (John 14:30). What was the adversary looking for? He was looking for the Lord Jesus to be living somewhere in Himself, consulting His own feelings, leaning to His own understanding, following His own judgments, His own will. If he could have caught Him there, he would have had something in Him and disturbed the balance of His life. The Lord Jesus was able to say, “...I live because of the Father...” (John 6:57); I live by the Father, not on what I am. He could say that as a perfect, sinless being, living none the less in dependence upon the Father all the time. Of this we have His own testimony: “The Son can do nothing of Himself...” (John 5:19); “...the words that I say unto you I speak not from Myself: but the Father abiding in Me doeth His works” (John 14:10). He lived all the time on the basis of the Father dwelling within, and because of that the enemy had no ground whatever.

This is the lesson of life for us. For any glory within now, or for any hope of glory in the great day of the manifestation, the sole ground of expectation must be Christ in us; because the glory is simply the manifestation of the Christ within, as His glorifying was the manifestation of the Father within.

[Shammu]

The Church, a Mystery of a Divine Indwelling

Now concerning the corporate expression of this Heavenly Man, in the Letter to the Ephesians the Apostle tells us that something is going on in the unseen, the purpose of which is stated thus: “...that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God.....” I wonder what that means? I do not know altogether, but I think I can see something of what it means. I believe the unseen intelligences are watching to see how they can get an advantage. They are watching with all their cunning, their diabolical wit and wisdom and ingenuity, with all their superhuman intelligence, to see how they can get an advantage, how they can make a stroke, if by any means they can get the upper hand of this baffling creation, the Church. Unto the principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God is being made known by the Church. How is this being accomplished? A clause from a verse in the First Letter to Timothy will, I think, help us towards the answer. “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; He Who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory.” A part of the mystery here spoken of is this somewhat obscure statement that He was “seen of angels.” I cannot be satisfied with the thought that this just means that the heavenly angels saw Him, either when He was in the flesh, or after His resurrection. This seems to say to my heart (of course I cannot prove it, but I am comparing scripture with scripture, and taking into account that it is the Holy Spirit Who has disclosed this fact and brought it to our knowledge) that these other angels, these spiritual intelligences who had watched for a chance against His life, seeking an advantage, using their cunning, saw now Who He was, saw the full meaning of His being, and why they had never succeeded in compassing their design, but had been compelled to learn their impotence regarding Him. They know now, because the secret is out. This Man is other than the first Adam; He is different from the first Adam! They got their chance with the first Adam and they took it, and into that race they brought the diabolical wisdom of which the Apostle says, “This wisdom is... devilish [demoniacal]” (James 3:15).

These intelligences had been waiting for an opportunity to bring in their wisdom in this other Adam, this last Adam, and they could not get it. They were beaten and defeated at every point, and now the secret is out, and they see One over Whom they could gain no advantage. Why was this? Because of the Father dwelling in Him. It is to this same truth that Paul refers when he says that Christ crucified, so far from being the wisdom of this world, is the wisdom of God. His wisdom far transcends the wisdom of this world, which in its nature is demoniacal. God is still further displaying His manifold wisdom to principalities and powers through the Church, the Body of Christ, the corporate Heavenly Man. How is this being accomplished? By this mystery of Christ within, defeating their every plan, their every scheme, by the great reality of the indwelling Lord Whose wisdom is so much greater than theirs.

Oh that we could live upon the great reality, the great essential, the great secret of the very being of the Church according to God’s mind, that basic secret of Christ within; not upon what we are at any time, but what Christ is. If you take that position you will be in a position of wisdom that outwits all the cunning of the Devil, and outmatches all his power.

Put it to the test; for it is open to practical proof at any time. If when you are next feeling desperately bad and hopeless and full of evil in yourself, as though all that you had believed in no longer held water and everything had gone to pieces, and all the sensations are upon you that it is possible for one to have, till you could well believe that you are lost; if, when this is so, you will take the position that it is all to do with your poor, broken down creation, and that Christ in you is other than that, and by faith stand on Him, the Devil’s power is destroyed, his wisdom is outwitted, and there is glory. That is the lesson we have to learn. Christ in you, and in the Church as the habitation of God through the Spirit, is the symbol of glory, of victory, of power and wisdom. Blessed be God, there are seasons when this reaches out to our feelings and we enjoy the realization that the Lord is in us, but it is not always so. An attack of indigestion can have the strangest effect upon our spiritual life, so far as our consciousness is concerned. The slightest little thing can come along and change the whole situation if we allow ourselves to go out into things. What things the enemy puts up, to draw us out into them! He is busy setting traps everywhere, contriving situations all round us, always ready with something to upset us. How cleverly arranged it is, just at the time when we are least wanting to be upset. Go home from a time with the Lord amongst His people, feeling gloriously uplifted, and probably when you get across the doorstep there is something waiting for you!

How are you going to outwit the Devil, outmaneuvre him, defeat him? By not going out into things. It is not easy; but not to go out into things, not to be drawn into the realm of the old creation so as to become involved in it, but to stand upon the ground that the adversary has to meet the perfection of Christ, is the sure way of his defeat, though we may have to bear with the difficult situation, and endure the pain and pang of it for quite a considerable time. But our position is that Christ is more than that, Christ in us is stronger than that, and falling back upon faith within, reaching out to Christ within as equal to this situation, we must repudiate it. David comes to our rescue so much in this realm. You will remember that on one occasion he was saying all sorts of depressing, hopeless things because the situation looked so utterly impossible; and then he recollected himself and said, “This is my infirmity; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High” (Ps. 77:10). Today I have blue spectacles on! This is my way of viewing things! This is how things affect me! This is me, it is not the Lord! Let us attribute things to their right quarter, and give to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

I am certain that here is the key to everything; the key to everything is Christ in you, Christ in me, Christ in His Body, and that to be lived upon by faith. It is the key to the superior wisdom, to outwit and outmatch the enemy. He will be defeated if we live on Christ and refuse to live on our own ground. The Lord make it clear to us.

[Shammu]

Chapter 15 - The Man Whom He Hath Ordained

Reading: Rom. 8:29; Gal. 4:19; Eph. 2:15,16; 1 Cor. 1:24–30, 12:13; Gal. 3:27,28; Acts 17:31.

“Inasmuch as He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man Whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

The words “the Man Whom He hath ordained” take us back to the point where we commenced our contemplation of things, into the counsels of God before times eternal. It was then that the Man was ordained. The history of this world, then, is to be gathered up, to be summed up in that Man; its destiny is to be determined in Him.

Let us make a few comprehensive, and yet quite concrete statements in relation to this fact.

Firstly, God’s explanation of the universe is a Man. If we want to know the meaning of the universe, we must look at a Man: and if we look at that Man Whom He hath ordained, and see Him with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, through a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, we shall see Him as God’s explanation of the universe.

Secondly, God’s answer to everything that has resulted from Adam’s fall is a Man. That is comprehensive. It is quite beyond our working out; but it does not matter at what point you touch the outcome of Adam’s fall, or what phase of the result you touch, you will find that God answers in a Man, in this Man. You may take any one of the issues of the Fall as you see them expressed at different points, representing a state full of difficulty, full of complexity, full of tragedy apparently, and ask, How is this to be dealt with, to be remedied? God’s answer is a Man, and this Man Whom He hath ordained.

I do not want to launch out upon a course of illustration, but I will give you one example of what I mean by this. Take Babel. Now Babel is a problem: the scattering of the people, the confounding of the language, and all the result of Babel in nations and diversities of tongues, with all the weakness that issues from that—a determined and intended weakness—is a problem of considerable magnitude. It was a sovereign act of God, against a certain kind of strength which would take charge of the world apart from God. But Babel itself represents a very big problem, and a complex state of things, as being in itself something which God never intended. It is the outworking of the Fall, and the expression of a curse. It has to be dealt with. The whole thing has to be cleared up. It can never abide if God is to have things as He intended. What is the answer to Babel? It is a Man. It is this Man. All that situation, that confusion, that tragedy, that evil, will be eventually cleared up in a Man. There will be in that Man a unity of all that is divided and scattered. There will be in that Man a coming to one understanding. We have the earnest of all this now in Christ. There is such a thing as spiritual understanding, and it does not matter whether we can understand one another in our human language or not, we can all understand by the Holy Spirit the same thing, and speak an inward language. There is a oneness of understanding, and the full assurance of understanding in Christ. I merely instance it and do not stay to work it out.

Thirdly, God’s proclamation to men, in respect of their salvation, their satisfaction, their fulness, is a Man. We will break that up in a minute or two.

Fourthly, God’s object, in all His dealings with His own, is a Man. The object of all the Lord’s strange and mysterious dealings, and of all His painful dealings with His own, is a Man, and He is entirely governed by His view of that Man in all He does with us. Nothing in all His dealings is something in itself, but it is all related. He has His eye all the time upon a Man, and He acts in relation to us with that Man in view.

No experience of ours, under the hand of God, is an incident by itself. It does not come into our lives because of this, or that, or something else as apart. If we go wrong, God does not chastise us for this or that as a thing in itself. God’s chastisements are not incidental, are not detached, are not apart, but in relation to an object, the object in His eye, a Man.

God’s dealings, not only with His own, but with the world, which are different kinds of dealings, are in relation to that Man. If we were able to recognize what that means, and apply it, bring it into the realm of applied truth, it would considerably help us in our everyday life.

Now in those statements we have comprehensively set forth God’s object, the great governing reality. Everything is explained by a Man, and in a Man, and that Man interprets the history and the destiny of the universe. It could be put in other ways, and a great deal more from the Word of God could be cited to show how this is so, but we have to go on to break it up further.

God has not Evolved or Produced a Religion

God has not evolved or produced a religion, that is, a system of religious teaching and practice. That is where so many have gone astray, and, as a consequence, you get the clever and scholarly works on the religion of the Semites, and all that sort of thing. To these are added works on comparative religions, with Judaism and Christianity included. The whole matter is reduced to comparative values in the religions of the world, as to which is the best, and if it can be proved, as many have tried to show, that Judaism was better than all the ancient religions, and Christianity better than both ancient and modern religions, then it is to be concluded that Christianity is the religion for the world. This is a missing of the point. It is not a thing that we are likely to be caught in, but we have to recognize this truth for ourselves, and see where men have gone astray. God has not evolved or produced a religion: God has presented a Man.

[Shammu]

God has not Presented a Set of Themes

God has not presented us (in the first instance) with a set of truths, themes, subjects, although the Bible may be full of these. He has not presented us with them, but with a Man. We are never called upon to preach salvation to anybody: we are called upon to preach Christ, and the salvation that is in Christ Jesus: “...it was the good pleasure of God... to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles...” (Gal. 1:15,16). Any truth, any doctrine, any theme, any subject which is not a revelation of Christ, and a ministration of Him, and which does not bring into Christ and make Christ Himself greater and fuller in the life, has missed its intention, has been divorced and separated from the purpose of God, and does not stand with God at all. God has not presented us, in the first instance, with a set of truths, themes, subjects, though there be found great themes in the Word of God, such as atonement, redemption, and the many others; He has presented us with a Man. Everything with God from eternity to eternity is inseparably bound up with a Man.

Perhaps you are wondering what is the practical value of saying such things. The practical value is this, that you never come into the meaning and value of the things, even should you deal with them all your life long, if they are taken as things in themselves. The only dynamic in any truth is the living Christ. Sanctification is Christ, even as justification is Christ. These are not things to be taken and stated, laid hold of and appropriated as things in themselves: Christ is made unto us sanctification and redemption.

Now one or two qualifying statements need to be made alongside of that. While it is true that God has not presented us, in the first instance, with truths, and so on, but with a Man; while it is true that God has not evolved religion, but presented a Man; while we are called to preach, not salvation, but the Saviour, we must remember that, even then, it is not with a Man officially that we have to do, but with what He is personally. By officially, we mean it is not the office that He occupies as Redeemer, Saviour, Mediator, or any other of the designations which may be given Him, representing His official work, with which we have to be concerned. That is not the first thing, but the Man Himself. We are not saved by coming to Him in His official capacity as Saviour, we are saved by vital union with Him as a person.

It is not by our objective vision of the Man that we receive all God’s meaning. There is great meaning and great value in Christ, viewed objectively; that is, as having summed up in Himself all that we need, and our holding fast by the fact of the completeness of everything in Christ. There is a real value for the heart in that, but it is not in having to do with the Man objectively alone, but subjectively, that we come into the Divine intention. The full hope of Christ is not Christ in salvation, but Christ in you. There are the values associated with Christ in salvation, but such a conception may be no more than of the official values of Christ as placed out there. The practical values of Christ are only known subjectively; they are what He is in Himself, and not what He is in office. You will see what we mean as we go on. It is very important for those of us who have responsibility in the things of God to recognize these differences.

Vital Union with Christ the Basis of God’s Success

The point is this, that the basis of God’s success is vital union with Christ, what we sometimes speak of as identification with Christ. God depends for His success entirely upon Christ within, and therefore, as we have said before, the one thing that God is after, and the one thing that the Devil is against, and will counter by every means of substitution, imitation, counterfeit, and so on, is getting Christ within men. Oh, how far things can go, and yet fall short of that! This is where the importance comes of recognizing the difference between doctrine— even the doctrine of salvation—and the Man, the Person. We can preach the doctrine to men and get an assent, the consent of the mind to the doctrine, so that we have our catechumens, our classes for instructing converts in the doctrine; and when they have come to the place where they say, Now I understand the doctrine, it is all clear to me now! we think they are ready to be brought into the Church. The matter is much simpler than that; and it must be more than that. You cannot educate anybody into the kingdom of God, not even with Christian doctrine. No one ever passes into the kingdom of God by understanding Christian doctrine intellectually. You may have all that, and yet have a serious breakdown before long. You may have an awful condition amongst your so called converts in the face of all that. It may be found in the long run that they were never really saved, though they were baptized on the grounds that they understood all that you could say to them about Christian doctrine. Thus, on the one hand, perfectly honest people may make a grave mistake, and, on the other hand, the Devil is out to give a tremendous amount of what comes just short of new birth. He will readily allow things to go so far, provided they do not go that far. But once that thing is really done, you have the basis for everything. You have the basis for the doctrine in a living way, the basis of complete assurance, the basis for everything, once Christ is within. God’s objective is reached with regard to the starting point, and everything is possible. That is what I mean by the difference between doctrine and the Person, between the official and the personal. The basis of God’s success is Christ in you, union with Christ, identification with Christ in an inward way. This is laid down in the Word of God as the principle upon which God works in this dispensation from first to last.

The Perfection of the Divine Provision seen in Relation to (a) The Problem of Human Life

Let us take some of the passages to which we have referred at the commencement of our meditation, and see how they are but a following out of this very principle laid down as the basis upon which God works through this dispensation. Turn to Galatians three, verse twenty-eight:

“There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female: for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus.”

This is the way in which God solves the problem of human life. As we find human life on this earth today, it really is a problem. It is up against that problem that all those well intentioned people who have round-table conferences of an International character always come. You call your round-table conference, and you have your representatives of the different nations of the earth, East and West, North and South; you have your different representatives of the social realm, your working man, as he is called, and your aristocrat, your capitalist, the employer and the employee; and in order to get different points of view, you will have your male and your female. You laboriously work: a proposition is made, but someone from the other end of the earth cannot accept that; it is not suitable to their realm of life, to what obtains in their nation. Then, of course, the employee cannot bring himself to see the point of view of the employer, neither the employer the point of view of the employee; and there is not a little difficulty in a man seeing a woman’s point of view. How many round-tables have been held, and how many of them have been successful? The amazing thing is how men go on with their conferences! As long as we have been living, men have been having conferences, and what is the upshot? Every one gets just so far, and then there is dead-lock. But they will have another one, and they will go on to the end trying to solve the problem of human life on that level of discussion, of conference.

Now God is perfectly aware of the whole situation. He is far more aware of the difficulties and the problems than anyone else. From His standpoint there are a great many more factors and features in the whole situation than have ever been manifested to men. But He has a solution, an infallible solution, and one which has fully proved itself wherever received. What is God’s solution to the problem of human life? It is a Man.

[Shammu]

(b) The Problem of Race

Here we have it: “...neither Jew nor Greek....” That is the national problem. If you are familiar with the background of Galatians, you know that it was a national problem that gave rise to that letter. Jewish believers were assuming a status above other believers. They were saying, Well, we are the Jews, and they are the Greeks; we stand in one realm and they in another! We, as the Jews, have certain privileges and advantages, which they have not: we stand in a more favoured position than they do; we are altogether superior! Greeks or Gentiles are spoken of by Jews as “the dogs,” the outsiders. How are you going to deal with the national problem? You will never finally solve that problem by a round-table conference. It is that problem which is so pressing in the world today, between the superior and the inferior races, between those who have the advantage and those who have not the advantage.

God’s solution to the problem is a Man. In Christ there can be neither Jew nor Greek. Has not the Man solved the problem? You and I who come on to the ground of the Heavenly Man, who forsake the earthly ground, forsake the national ground, and come on to the ground of Christ, find blessed fellowship. Oh, what perfect fellowship! What profitable fellowship! What prospects loom up in view; how fruitful it all is! So far from being a way of loss, it is blessedly full of value. What a tragedy that even so many of the Lord’s own people have not forsaken national ground. What prejudices and implied limitations there are through pride. How they limit, how they blight, how they keep out the fulness of Christ, and make God’s intention impossible. Get off that ground on to the ground of God’s Heavenly Man, where there can be neither Jew nor Greek, and the national problem, as a part of the human problem, is solved.

(c) The Social Problem

Then further it is said, “...there can be neither bond nor free....” The social problem is dealt with, the problem of the master and the slave. How are you going to solve the problem of the employer and the employee? You will only solve it in the Man, but in Him you will solve it in truth. Then, if the Jew thinks that nationally he has an advantage over the Greek, and if the master thinks he has an advantage over the servant, and, as is often the case, particularly in the East, the man thinks he has the advantage over the woman, how are you to get over these problems? God’s salvation is a Man. You do not, of course, get rid of the facts; the distinctions are not abolished here on the earth—and God forbid that we should attempt such a thing—but on the ground of the “new man” we are made as one. There we meet on a different ground altogether. In Christ there can be neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither bond nor free, neither superior nor inferior: advantages and disadvantages disappear.

(d) The Religious Problem

The Apostle refers again to both the national and social problems, as you notice, in Colossians three, verse eleven, but he also expands a little: “Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision....” Here he is perhaps putting his finger a little more firmly upon the Jew and the Greek problem. He is now stressing, not only the national, but the religious problem. How acute that was. In Christ there is no religious advantage over others; no one is in a position of less advantage on religious grounds than others. Then he speaks of barbarian and Scythian. This is a further reference to the racial question. These represent different levels of civilization and cultivation, and the Apostle is clearing up the problem by saying that in Christ such distinctions have no place.

(e) The Problem of Human Destiny

Then another aspect of this is brought before us in the passage in First Corinthians one, verses twenty-four through thirty:

“But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God... But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, Who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption....”

Here is another problem, that of human destiny, and this is gathered up into two words, and words that are frequently repeated, wisdom and power, power and wisdom. The question here at Corinth is a reflex of Greek philosophy, which had crept in with its subtle and pernicious suggestions. The question is that of reaching the super-man status. That is the question of philosophy—the highest wisdom and the greatest power. Wisdom and power are the two constituents of the super-man. Philosophy has always had in view the thought of man reaching his destiny, the idea that man has a great destiny. Man has indeed a meaning, a great meaning; there is bound up with man a great idea. With many of the Pagans, the idea was that of the deification of humanity, of man slowly evolving until he becomes deified. So that the great man is to be worshipped. Their heroes were worshipped as approximating to their ideal, and this was all a movement toward the ultimate deification of humanity, and the characteristics of this supreme super-man, as thus conceived of, were wisdom and power. They were always stretching out for a superior wisdom to bring them into a place of superior power, and thus to realize the great destiny of man. The problem of human destiny was dealt with in the light of wisdom and power.

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That lies behind the world today. Is it not this that we are meeting with now in dictators, in men who would dominate the world? It is a case of wisdom and power reaching such an attitude of human status that everything is brought under the dictator’s dominion. He is regarded as the embodiment of the world’s highest wisdom and greatest power. That is man. Such will be the Devil’s man on the human level.

The question of human destiny is quite a living one for us. It is just as real and important and right a question for believers as it is for the world. It is not the world which is really in line with the destiny of man. There is no getting away from the fact that man has a marvellous destiny. God created man with an object far greater than anything the princes of this world have ever conceived, and so the question of human destiny is a right and a proper one, and perhaps one of the greatest. But the question which goes with it is, How is the end to be reached? Wisdom is quite right. This “one new man” is to display the manifold wisdom of God unto all supernatural intelligences, to be the embodiment of Divine wisdom on all its sides. Power is quite right. There is no doubt at all that this one “new man” is to be the instrument of the exercise of the infinite power of God, to be a display of God’s mighty power. These things are a right consideration for us: they present a legitimate question, the problem of how to reach the super-man status. That was the question with the Greeks all the time. The answer of God through His Word is a Man Whom He hath ordained. The answer is Christ within, the power and the wisdom. Christ within, in the power of death and resurrection, solves the problem of human destiny.

This world has tried to solve this problem by numerous systems of philosophy. If you sit down to investigate any one of them, you will find it is an attempt to solve the problem of human destiny, the meaning of man, and the meaning of the universe, and how man and the universe are to reach their predestined end. The world is full of systems of philosophy which are seeking to answer this question. The Lord answers it in a simple and direct way, and says that the solution to the problem is a Man, and that Man, in the power of death and resurrection, dwelling within. How are you and I to realize God’s predestined purpose? This is the answer: “...Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). But this is Christ within as the wisdom and power of God. This wisdom is so simple. What does Christ within mean in relation to that great ultimate purpose of God? It is the earnest of that to which the Apostle by the Spirit elsewhere gives expression: “...foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son...” (Rom. 8:29); and again: “...until Christ be formed in you...” (Gal. 4:19). When that is done the world will be occupied by a great corporate Man of God’s own kind, and the end will be reached. That Man is Christ, in His fulness—His Body.

How then are you going to solve these problems? Well, Plato will tell you all about it in his Republic! Oh, the laws and the regulations! Oh, the observances! See all that you have to take account of, to do, and not do, to institute, and carry out. It is all a tremendous system to bring man up to standard. The Lord’s answer is a very much simpler one than that. Let Christ but dwell within, and He will work to bring you up to His own level. Give Him a chance within, and you will be conformed to His image; Christ will be fully formed in you. And when that is true of the whole Body, you have the one new, universal Man. Is that not wisdom? Oh, the poor philosophers! How they have exhausted their brains, and many of them have gone mad in the attempt to solve the problem of human destiny. The Lord’s wisdom is so simple. Christ in you is the wisdom of God. That is how the whole problem is met. You have not to think everything out, plan it all, work to a colossal system of rules and regulations and observances; you have simply to let the Lord within have His way, and the end is sure. The problem of the universe is solved without any mental exhaustion. It is a matter of life. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the wisdom of God so simple. Men are spending the centuries wearing themselves out, and what is the result? Look at it today. What a sad picture of the upward progress of humanity! But God is effecting His purpose, and in the unseen there is a Man growing that is to fill the universe. God’s way is so simple and so effective. If you want to solve the question of wisdom and power, this is it. Wisdom is the question of “how.” Then it becomes a question of ability when you know how. Christ within is both the “how,” and the “ability.”

All this, and much more (the Word is full of it and we shall never exhaust it all) comes back to the one thing: ALL THINGS IN CHRIST. God’s answer to everything, God’s explanation of everything, God’s means of realizing everything is a Man, “the Man Christ Jesus.” When this world has run its evil course, this inhabited earth will be judged in a Man. Men will be judged by what their inward relationship is to that Man. The question at the judgment will never be of how much good or bad, right or wrong, more or less, is in a man; it will turn upon this one point, Are you in Christ? If not, more or less makes no difference. God’s intention, God’s proclamation is that all things are in His Son. Are you in Him? Why not? The basis of judgment is very simple. It is all gathered up in a Man, and what is in that Man of God for us. That is the basis of judgment. It all comes back to the very simple, and yet comprehensive and blessed truth, that it is what Christ is that satisfies God, reaches God’s end, and meets all our need. It is all summed up in a Man, “the Man Christ Jesus.”

The Lord continue to open our eyes to see His glorious and Heavenly Man, Who is also the Divine Servant.

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

The Stewardship of the Mystery - Volume 2
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 - Introductory

Near the Journey’s End

The last phase of his pilgrimage has arrived. The end of the journey is in sight. The course has been well-nigh run; and what a course it has been! The faithful servant, the war-scarred warrior, the greatest of Christ’s missionaries, church builders, and stewards of the heavenly riches, will soon receive “the crown of life” laid up for him. His “journeys oft” are soon to give place to “the rest that remaineth.” His “labouring more abundantly” is practically over. He gives expression to a hope that he may yet visit some of his most beloved converts (Phil. 2:24). (Some believe that this hope was realized, and that, for a short period of release, he travelled still further afield. But we have no definite record of this in the New Testament.) He is now in imprisonment in Rome, and Luke concludes his record with the period there “in his own hired house.” This man, who saw the sovereignty of God in every vicissitude of his life, did not fail to do so in this arrival in Rome and sojourn there, so different from what he had hoped for and expected (Rom. 1:15).

Disappointment and God’s Appointment

Taking stock of his situation, he was not long in arriving at the conclusion that, in that Divine sovereignty, this would make possible the realization of another strong desire that had been in his heart, but which could not be fulfilled while on his many travels. Letters, longer or shorter, he had written, each of which had been written in relation to some particular need and situation. Not one of them went—other than by a passing reference—outside of that special demand. During his long journeys, when plying his trade to support himself and make it impossible for critics to rightly say that he lived on his converts; and by special and extraordinary experiences, such as being “caught up into the third heaven (in a vision or dream) and hearing unspeakable things” (2 Cor. 12:1–4); not omitting that two years in the Arabian Desert; several years alone in Tarsus soon after his conversion; and a long imprisonment in Caesarea; all this gave him much time for meditation and for the Lord to speak to him. In this way an immense accumulation of spiritual knowledge became stored up in his heart. Being so sure, as he often said, that this “revelation” was a “stewardship” for “the Body of Christ,” he would doubtless be hoping for a time when he would have leisure and detachment enough to unburden his spirit in writing. We now know that such a time and opportunity just had to come, for the fruit of that has been an unspeakable blessing to the Church during these many centuries.

Well, as we have said, strange as the Providence may have seemed when first he looked round his apartment, and, not least, his Roman guard and chain, he soon realized that this could be the great opportunity for which he had been waiting. It would very strongly appear that as this realization came to him, and perhaps in the long nights when visitors had gone, he became almost overwhelmed by the uprush of that store of revelation. We so conclude from the way and manner, as well as the substance of what he then committed to writing. He had those churches in Asia immediately in mind (though the Lord had much greater intentions) and what he wrote was intended to be circulated among them; probably a blank space being left for filling in with the particular name, such as: “to the saints which are at...” (the name “Ephesus” does not occur in earliest manuscripts). There is little doubt, however, that this overflow of heart had a special direction for that so great and spiritually influential church at Ephesus. This may be of secondary importance in view of the so-much-greater Divine intention by this inspiration.

The Overflowing Heart

It is his manner that means so much as a first impression. Our sub-title is an example of that manner. The Letter (to the Ephesians, so-called) is written in terms of the superlative. Look at some of these superlatives: “The exceeding greatness of His power” (1:19); “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (1:23); “the exceeding riches of His grace” (2:7); “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (3:; “the breadth and length and height and depth,” “the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ,” “all the fulness of God” (3:18,19); “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (3:20); “far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things” (4:10); “the fulness of Christ” (4:13); “a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (5:27).

Are we not right in saying that the man was just unable to contain his fulness? Then, not only his phrases, but his grammatical form. He will start on a course, and then, when an extra thought comes into his mind, he will diverge and go off at a tangent, not picking up the earlier thread again until some way after. The longest sentence, without a “period” or full stop, in the New Testament occurs in this Letter. He is too full and too eager to stop for literary technicalities. The flood-gates are open, and, like a torrent, he is pouring out this fulness so long pent up. When we come to consider the nature of his revelation we shall understand better why he was so expressive in superlatives. At the moment we are just registering the force of his anxiety to get it out at last.

To dwell a little longer on this Letter.

Some may not agree with us, and some may think that we are exaggerating when we say that this Letter is

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The Greatest Document ever Penned

We shall have to substantiate that opinion, but we shall not have altogether failed when we have finished.

When we say “greatest,” of course we do not mean in length, but in intrinsic value and content.

This is the crown and consummate essence of Paul’s ministry. It is the climax of his mission.

Here are a few comments of outstanding Christian scholars:

For one such it is “the consummate and most comprehensive statement which even the New Testament contains of the meaning of the Christian religion, blending as nowhere else its evangelical, spiritual, moral and universal elements.”

Or from another:

“The sublimest communication ever made to men was made from a Roman prison by one who in his own esteem was ‘the very least of all the saints.’ ”

“This Epistle is one of the noblest in the New Testament.”

“A divine Epistle glowing with the flame of Christian love, and the splendour of holy light, and flowing with fountains of living water.”

“The most heavenly work of one whose very imagination is peopled with things in the heavens.”

“In this, the divinest composition of man, is every doctrine of Christianity; first, those doctrines peculiar to Christianity; etc.”

“It is emphatically the Epistle of the Ascension. We rise in it, as on wings of inspiration, to the divinest heights. Word after word—and thought after thought— now “the heavenlies,” now “spiritual,” now “riches,” now “glory,” now “mystery,” now “plenitude,” now “light,” now “love,” seem, as it were, to leave behind them “a luminous trail” in this deep and shining sky.”

“It is the most advanced, the most sublime, the most profound, the most final utterance of Paul’s Gospel.”

Let us hasten to say that our own appraisal is not the result of reading such estimates as the above, for these are of much later discovery. We have reached our own conclusion after many years of reading and meditating in this Letter, and Paul’s ministry in general. But we are so glad to have our judgment confirmed or checked by men of so much greater knowledge than our own.

Thus far we have only introduced the Letter. Its content, teaching and message will occupy the main space, while still remaining so vastly beyond our comprehension. Before we take our plunge into those deeps, and never get much further than the surface, we shall have of necessity to give some attention to the man himself, and to how the man and his ministry are one thing. Before so proceeding, let us remind our readers of one or two obvious, but impressive facts.

When the Apostle Paul set himself to write this Letter, he had no idea that he was writing Holy Scripture—the Bible (in part). His sole thought and desire was to confirm and supplement that “whole counsel of God” which he “had not shunned” to declare to—and through—Ephesus and Asia Minor during the two years that he was there (Acts 19). It was a Letter that—in his own mind—he was writing, and that to a location and a need. It could never have occurred to him that what he was writing would be read by an ever-growing number of people through nearly twenty centuries; that it would go into a world the size of which he knew nothing; that people of every race under heaven would have it translated into their own language or dialect; that it would divide Christendom world-wide into the largest opposing schools of theology and interpretation; that people of God in every time and realm would feed eagerly upon it; that bookstores in every country would have their shelves growingly bulged with “Expositions,” “Commentaries,” “Sermons,” etc., on this “Letter”; and that, finally, such appraisals as we have given above would be attached to that piece of personal correspondence! He would not only never have imagined this as possible, but would have had a shock of astonishment if he could have foreseen it. What a vindication of his testimony! What a justification of his sufferings! What an unveiling of God’s sovereignty and grace! What an inspiration and strength this should be to any who may be suffering in fellowship with Christ, and what a proof of the truth of his own words: “Your labours are not in vain in the Lord!”

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Chapter 2 - The Man in the Message

This is not intended to be a “Life of the Apostle Paul,” but has rather to do with the particular significance of this servant of Jesus Christ. While there are those vital and essential factors in his case which must be true of every servant of Christ, and which are basic to every fruitful ministry (as we shall later mention), everything about Paul indicates that he was indeed “a chosen (elect) vessel,” foreknown, foreordained and selected. This was true particularly in the nature of the ministry for which he was “apprehended.” The same nature of ministry may—in measure—be the “calling” of others, but it was pioneered in Paul. All the Apostles stood on common ground where the fundamentals of the faith were concerned: the Person of Christ; the work of Christ; redemption; justification; sanctification; the world commission to preach salvation in Christ to all the world; the coming again of the Saviour, etc. They had the same foundation. Each one may have had “grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ”; that is, according to their personal gift, whether Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor or Teacher, each had “grace”—anointing, enablement—corresponding to the responsibility, but on “fundamentals,” i.e. foundation matters, they were agreed and one. Whatever we may say in distinguishing Paul, we would not for a moment take one small fragment from the great ministry of John, or Peter, or James, or others. Never could our New Testament suffer the loss of those ministries, and elsewhere we have gloried in them. When all has been said as to their value—and it would be an immense “all”—we still have to affirm that there was, and is, that which is unique and particular in what came through Paul. Let us hasten to say a very significant and helpful thing before we proceed.

It would never have been possible for Paul to understand his pre-conversion life until he came under the hand of Jesus Christ. That vocation with which he was called when Jesus became his Lord throws so much illumination upon the sovereignty of God in his past history. This is a principle which will help so many people and servants of God, and it shows how immensely important it is that Jesus shall be—not only Saviour— but Lord. We shall see this more fully later. Paul’s Jewish birth, upbringing, training, education and deep embeddedness in something from which he would be extricated by the power of God, and something which was going to be shown no longer to be what God needed, is in itself of tremendous educative value. Why God, in His foreknowledge, should put a man deeply into something which does not ultimately represent His mind contains a point to be noted. Many there are who argue that, because they have ample reason to know that God put them into a certain way, work, form, association, there they are to abide for ever, willy nilly. Paul’s history says No to that argument. God’s ways in his case came to show that He may do a thing like that, and all His sovereignty may truly be in it, but only for a purpose, and a temporary purpose; namely, to give a deep and thorough first-hand knowledge of that which is really at best a limitation upon the full purpose of God. It is necessary for an effective servant of God to have personal knowledge of that from which people are to be delivered. Abraham must know Chaldea; Moses must know Egypt; David must know the falsehood of Saul’s reign. So Paul must know the proscribed Judaism, so that he can speak with authority, the authority of personal experience. Were we the Psalmist, we should put “Selah” there. “Think of that!”

But we must underline two aspects of this principle. We are referring to what was definitely within the Divine ‘working of all things after the counsel of His own will,’ and “according to His purpose.” Paul was not changing his God at conversion, Jehovah was his God for ever. The change was in the method of God. It was still God working. We say this because no one can say that, because they were born and brought up in this or that, therefore “Providence” (meaning God) intended that to be their way for always. We must be as we are and where we are by the sovereignty of God, and we must know that any major change is equally definitely of God, and the only alternative to making it is clear disobedience to the presented will of God. It has to be a must, or a missing of the way. It certainly will make demands upon faith’s walk with God, because the element of apparent contradiction may be present. We do not know what mental and soul battles Paul had. It is not recorded that in facing the immense revolution he reasoned with the Lord—‘Well, Lord, by Your own sovereignty I was born a Jew, and that with more than general terms: “of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews... a Pharisee.” And now, Lord, you are requiring me to take a course which repudiates all that and contradicts it. It is not like You, Lord, to contradict Yourself; it seems so inconsistent. It is not as though I have not been God-fearing and have been without faith in You.’ The change was so revolutionary as to seem to be two contrary ways in the same God. Here was a very big occasion to “trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding.” We could cite the cases of many servants of God who have been brought to such a crisis between reason and faith when God was demanding a decision which seemed to contradict all His former leading. Some of these have come to be very greatly vindicated by obedience. Some have lived to be examples of having missed the way, or God’s best.

All this has had to do with God’s sovereign preparation and equipment of a servant so that that servant should truly know by deep experience what he is talking about and what the differences are. This then, in brief, as to his Jewish relationship.

But this man was elected and destined to be God’s special messenger to the nations, not just to a nation. The nations were mainly under Roman government and Greek culture and language. Through his father Paul inherited Roman citizenship and Freemanship, and by his birth and upbringing in Tarsus he had both the Greek language and a first-class familiarity with Greek life and culture. These three things—Jewry, Roman citizenship and Greek language—took him with facility and ease into practically the whole world. But, added to all this natural qualification was that without which Paul would never have been the real factor that history testifies to; he was anointed with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the anointing has made up for much natural deficiency in education and birth, and men have made spiritual history who would never have been recognized on merely natural grounds. The Lord took very real care that Paul could never make his natural advantages the ground of his true success. This was implied or indicated in the first recorded words of the Lord about him (to Ananias) after his conversion: “I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:16).

The sovereignty of God is many-sided and has many ways. It is only when the full story is told that a true explanation is seen. At the beginning and in the course there can be room for many a “why?” A Moses and a Jeremiah may start off with what they are convinced is a definite handicap and contradiction, but history justifies God and in the end His wisdom is vindicated. When God says “He is a chosen vessel,” He knows all about the clay of which the vessel is made. As we go on, the two implicit things just referred to will become increasingly apparent. One, that the messenger and his message are one thing; the message is in the man’s constitution and very history under the hand of God. And two, the man is not just recognized for his natural qualifications alone, but pre-eminently because God has anointed him for his position and work. No man can be in any but a completely false position who speaks without what he says being born out of real experience. Only, for instance, may a man speak of brokenness if he himself has been broken. Paul’s ministry throughout came from a continuous history with God in deep and usually painful experiences of conflict. It was “the spoil of battle.” It is absolutely imperative that it should be obvious and manifest that any position, function and ministry on the part of anyone in relation to Christ should be by anointing, and that the impression made and the conclusion drawn by others is that “that man is clearly anointed for that job!” Anointing simply means that God is most evidently with the person concerned in what they are doing and in the position that they hold. To be out of position is to be out of anointing in that particular. We cannot select, choose, decide our place and function. That is an organic thing, and just as it is awkward for a leg to try to do the work of an arm in the human body, so there will always be something wrong when we assume a work or position for which the sovereignty of the Spirit has not chosen us. With all the adversities and oppositions, it is the most helpful thing to know that we are where we are by Divine appointment and not by our own will. It is a good thing when we know what our function is, and what it is not, and act accordingly! There are sufficient functions in the body corporate for every member to have a quite definite one under the one anointing, and the function will as naturally express itself as an eye sees, an ear hears, a hand grips, and so on, if the head (the Head) is in full and right control. Paul, then, has much to teach us on this matter, first by his life and then by his writings. At this point we are brought back to where we diverged from the message to the man, and we must now consider that differentiation of function for which Paul was particularly chosen and apprehended.

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Paul’s Distinctive Vocation

That there was a difference and peculiar importance in Paul’s ministry has a number of strong evidences and attestations. He knew it himself and often referred to it, both as to its substance and the way in which he received it. This is expressed in such words as these:

“the stewardship (R.V. margin) of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward”;
“how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery... whereby... ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ”; “Unto me... was this grace given... to make all men see (bring to light—R.V. margin) what is the stewardship of the mystery” (Eph. 3:2–4, 8, 9).

While Paul does not say that he alone had the “mystery” made known to him, he does claim that, as a stewardship, a ministry, it was revealed to him in a distinctly personal and direct-from-heaven manner. He claimed that he was divinely apprehended for this particular ministry. What that revelation was has to spread itself over all that we shall yet write. At the moment we are concerned with the fact of Paul’s specific vocation.

Not least among the evidences of this was the fury, invective, hatred, malice and murderous cruelty of the devil and his forces focused upon this man, relentlessly. It was surely because of what was coming through him and not just because of his personality. It began and broke loose on the same issue before Paul was the apprehended vessel of it. To see and understand this we have to go back to the one man who had previously seen what Paul was shown. We refer to Stephen as the first Christian martyr and we are deeply moved when we read the account of his death. But how little Stephen has been understood, and how blind we have been to the real meaning of his death—his destruction by Satan-controlled men.

Stephen—the Precursor of Paul

A thoughtful consideration of Stephen’s discourse before the Jewish Sanhedrin will show that Stephen was like a ‘preface’, an introduction, to Paul’s ministry. If Stephen had lived, there is little doubt that he and Paul would have been in a mighty partnership in the Stewardship of the Mystery. This, of course, supposes that the Lord did not foresee that Stephen would die, and that, in that foreknowledge, He did not mark down Paul for the alone steward of this ministry in its fulness. The Divine sovereignty has rarely been evidenced more than in Saul’s presence with Stephen at the time of the latter’s death, although an accomplice in it. As we move with Stephen through that long discourse, following his mind from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, the Patriarchs, Joseph, Israel, Moses, Egypt, the Exodus, Sinai, the Tabernacle, the Wilderness, Joshua, David, Solomon, the Temple, the Prophets, up to Christ, the “Righteous One,” there is one thing that is in Stephen’s mind throughout, and that one thing is the key to everything and that which—more than anything else—explains, defines and characterizes Paul and his ministry. That one thing is that God is ever, from eternity to eternity, pressing on to an all-comprehending goal. Through human failure, human and Satanic obstruction and attempted frustration; by a variety and multitude of ways, means, and persons, in all generations and ages, God is ever going on. His desired and selected instruments may become a hindrance rather than a help. Nations, empires and systems may oppose and obstruct; circumstances may seem to limit Him, but—given time— He is found not to have given up, but still to be going on. He has set Himself a purpose and a goal, and that goal will be reached. Let Jewry “always resist the Holy Spirit” as Stephen says; so much the worse for Jewry. That is the tremendous upshot of Stephen’s discourse. Within that inclusiveness there are other features. God’s purpose is a heavenly one, a vast one, a spiritual one, an eternal one. Neither the Tabernacle, with all its inner beauty and symbolic embodiment of Divine thoughts; nor the Temple of Solomon with all its magnificence and glory; nor Solomon himself with his stunning wisdom and overwhelming wealth—says Stephen—can remotely approximate to that toward which God is moving in relation to His Son. That is not “made with hands.” That is not of the earth. That is not God’s House (Acts 7:48,49). The Holy Spirit—says Stephen, in effect—is moving on, ever on to this so-much-greater in every way. Stephen, in one glorious hour met the devastating force of that with which Paul contended all his life, namely the incorrigible disposition of God’s people to bring what is essentially heavenly down to earth and fix it there; to crystallize spiritual things into man-made systems; to lay hands upon what is of God and make it something of man, something exclusive and legal under man’s control. Stephen’s stand for, and testimony to, this “Heavenly Vision” (that became Paul’s phrase) brought him into the most violent and vicious hatred of vested religious interests, so far as systems were concerned, and Satan’s fiercest jealousy behind all. Touch religious traditions and established orders and you will find the same thing that Stephen met, a jealousy which issues from blindness to the vastly greater purpose of God. In some way you will be stoned! by ostracism, exclusion, closed doors, suspicion and misrepresentation, all of which are traceable in the case of Paul.

Have we said enough about Stephen to justify and establish our statement that he was—so to speak—Paul in advance? Stephen himself is an example of God going on in spite of hell and men, as Paul was the going on of God in fulness when men put Stephen away. We look back to our beginning statement that a major evidence of the particular ministry for which Paul was chosen is the vehemence of Satanic antagonism.

All that we have said, and much more, will, of course, come out in our consideration of the ministry of Paul himself, but I am sure that we are beginning to see something of his significance.

Still ahead of our contemplation of the crowning and consummate ministry of Paul the Apostle, there are several matters of considerable value which may make a brief chapter of helpfulness by themselves.

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Chapter 3 - Spying Out the Land

On two occasions, when Israel was contemplating entering the Land of the Covenant and Promise, spies were sent over beforehand. The first was disastrous because it was the decision of the people governed by self-interest, and although Moses complied and the Lord acquiesced, the secret motive was eventually betrayed. After long and deep discipline the principle of “the delight of the Lord” was present and faith triumphed. The spies can go with approval and blessing when the motive is that of the Lord’s glory, not man’s. We would believe that the move from First Corinthians chapter ten to Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, corresponds to that change from the first to the second spying out of the Land. May ours answer to the second as we contemplate the glorious Land!

Of the preliminary considerations these are some:

(1) Paul himself was—when writing—aware that what he had been shown by the Lord was beyond his power of utterance. The very phrase “unsearchable riches” implies this. It could be correctly translated “untraceable,” or “unexplorable.” Beyond tracing, beyond exploring, beyond searching out. Paul knew himself to be attempting an impossible task. He requested these believers in Asia to pray for him “that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known... the mystery...” (Eph. 6:19). He was labouring to speak the unspeakable, to fathom the unfathomable, to comprehend the incomprehensible. The paradox of preaching the unpreachable characterizes these final Letters. If that was true of that man, what can we do more than behold at a distance!

(2) What Paul did and did not set himself to do. Paul—in these final writings—did not set himself to write a treatise on this or that theme, subject, or doctrine. There is all the difference in this respect between “Ephesians” and “Galatians” or “Romans.” No particular threat to the faith led him—as in those Letters—to write this the greatest of all, although that may have been partly true of “Colossians.” In “Ephesians” Paul is not “reasoning,” arguing, debating. He is not setting down his “Philosophy of Christianity.” He had a wide and rich knowledge of the philosophies and religious ideas of the world in which he had moved. But he is not minded to deal with these or to compare the other religions with Christianity. What Paul did do in this Letter to Asia and, through Asia, to all whom Asia touched (and unconsciously to us) was to make a mighty proclamation. Here we have a man making a proclamation. He is just giving out, with a heart too full for articulation, an “utterance.” It is like an imperative broadcast for which the microphone is too small and inadequate. This is not something that he had thought out and was the product of his great brain. He attributed it to a “revelation” given him by the initiative of God. This that he is penning is a vital and, in a sense, a consummate presentation of the long process of God’s self-disclosure, and it embodies God’s full and final revelation of His eternal purpose. It is because it is of this nature that Paul falls on his knees and prays a special prayer for his readers (1:15–17). It is because of a fixed and unalterable law and principle which he has enunciated so clearly and emphatically elsewhere (1 Cor. 2:14–16) that spiritual things, things of the Spirit, can only be understood by spiritual people, people of the Spirit. We have to come on this later, but all that is before us in this Letter will be little or not more than written mysteries if we do not pray this same prayer on this same necessity before we go any further.

(3) The last Letters, being so inclusive in substance, naturally gather up in allusion, if not in restatement, many of the matters touched on incidentally in former Letters. So, in allusion, we have vital points in Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, etc. It would require much time and space to trace and tabulate the instances. Some great words will be indicative, such as “Redemption,” “Spiritual,” “Sons,” “Grace,” “Adoption,” “Foreordained,” etc.

(4) Our method will be different from that usually employed in studying these (and other) Letters. In order that Bible students may obtain a quick, easy and simple grasp of the books, the Letters are usually reduced by Bible teachers to outlines according to the content and subjects mainly mentioned. This is a very valuable and helpful method. So we have such helpful outlines and analyses (of Ephesians) as Dr. Campbell Morgan’s The Church—1. The Heavenly Calling. 2. The Earthly Conduct, each of these two sections being divided into three more. Or we have Miss Ruth Paxon’s The Wealth, Walk and Warfare of the Christian; or that little book by Watchman Nee, Sit, Walk, Stand. We have not an idea that we can at all improve on such, but that is not the method which we are employing, and we hasten to say so. From the following you will not be given a “bird’s eye view”, as we usually describe a general look at things; unless it is an eagle’s eye which sees vast ranges from great altitudes. In this sense “Ephesians” does take up the eagle aspect of the Cherubim—mystery and heavenliness. Our method will be—as it were—to hover over some of the eminences rising from this landscape, or, to keep to our title, to stand and gaze with wonder at some of “the unsearchable riches of Christ” which are presented in these final writings, especially in “Ephesians.”

This, then, is what we meant by “Spying out the Land.” At most we can but glimpse the greatnesses which are embodied in this Letter. But if we could see them; free from all prejudice, bias and natural influences, we should return with the same wonder and assurance as did the spies of the second investigation.

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Chapter 4 - The Unsearchable Riches

We shall not get very far into the practical meaning and import of this great unveiling until we have the key in our hand. Once we have that key everything will be explained as to its purpose and value. Strangely enough, that key is in the form of a small prefix which—unfortunately—does not appear in our translations. It occurs twice in “Ephesians” (in major connections); four times in “Colossians”; once in “Philippians”; in both letters to Timothy; and in “Hebrews” (whether Paul actually wrote “Hebrews” is not discussed, but we have no hesitation in saying that his influence and conception are definitely in it). In our translation we have the word knowledge in Ephesians 1:17 and 4:13; in Colossians 1:6,9,10; 3:10; and in Philippians 1:9. But in these and the other letters mentioned the word (in the Greek) has the little prefix epi. Epi means “full,” and while “to know” occurs alone in many places in the New Testament, it means— usually—the beginning of knowledge, such as “This is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ” (John 17:3). But when we have moved on from the beginning and are come to the more mature state as in Paul’s later Letters, that which is set before us is “Full Knowledge” (Epi-gnosis). What Paul prays for therefore in Ephesians 1:17 is that believers who have already advanced in knowledge may still come to full knowledge. That is the word of maturity. This then is the key to all that is presented here, and what is presented is that which constitutes full knowledge. All that we will add until later is that this knowledge, or full knowledge, is not mental, intellectual, academic, obtained by reading, study, hearing (although it might come through such), but, as Paul emphasizes, it is by revelation of the Holy Spirit. For us now, since the Scriptures were completed, revelation is not something extra to the Scriptures, but revelation or illumination as to what is in the Scriptures; and that is inexhaustible. Back to that later.

Let us note some of the

Major Features of the Ultimate Disclosure

As to how the Apostle came by the full knowledge which he had, we can only say two things which are made known. One was the more general, “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full-knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened...” etc. That is the birthright of every believer, but it belongs to obedience to all truth or light already given. It is what John refers to: “the anointing which ye received... teacheth you concerning all things” (1 John 2:27). But, in Paul’s case, because of his special “stewardship” he was given special revelations, as when he was caught up (in vision, dream or trance) into the third heaven and heard unspeakable things (2 Cor. 12). If we follow this illumined and inspired mind of the Apostle, we shall be led into and through “ages” from eternity past to eternity yet to be. We shall be given a glimpse of what took place in each of these eras, and what the characteristic of each was, is, and will be.

There are four of these eras referred to:

1. “Before times eternal”;
2. from creation to Christ—the Old Testament era;
3. from the Incarnation to the consummation of the age;
4. “the age of the ages.”

Between 1 and 2 there is an event which has affected the whole course and character of things from 1 to 3, as we shall see.

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Before Times Eternal

It is to be noted that the Apostle had barely begun this Letter (to the “Ephesians”) and opened the flood-gate of this pent-up revelation, than he carried his readers away back past all time and landed them in what he called “before the foundation of the world.” It is language which he used more than once: “before times eternal” (2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2). Having taken that long flight back over centuries and millennia, he intimated what in that dateless past took place. Two things are indicated and stated. In the counsels of the Godhead, the Son of God was designated and appointed the eternal Sphere of all that would be of God. “In Him” is the definition (Eph. 1:4). Two hundred times the Apostle uses that term in varying forms in his writings. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews states the same thing in precise words: “Whom He appointed heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2). This is not knowledge exclusively Paul’s. Both John and Peter speak of the same thing as to the eternal position of the Son of God. But Paul unfolds so much more of that designation. There, then, first in the “before times eternal”, the Son of God—now given the name which became His so long after, “Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:3)—was determined the inclusive realm of all that which would belong to God. As a race would be “in Adam” (1 Cor. 15:22); as a nation would be in the single seed of Abraham (Rom. 4:13, etc.); and as the harvest is in the single grain of wheat, so the Son of God would be the content of all that which would eventually be of God. So the Apostle links with the Person the persons: “He chose us in Him.” This was in the Divine deliberations. We are not unfamiliar with this concept. Jesus Himself made reference to it: “for the elect’s sake...,” “...so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:22,24; ASV). “Shall not God avenge His elect...?” (Luke 18:7), etc. Peter also uses the term (1 Pet. 1:1). In those eternal counsels there was determined and secured a “people,” a “body,” a “nation,” which just had to be to justify the appointment of the Son. No, we are not going to launch into a discussion of “predestination” or “foreordination.” All that we will say just at this point is that two things govern this matter of the Divine election. One is that it is corporate; it is a “Body” and, just as a physical body was prepared for God’s Son in incarnation—“a body didst Thou prepare for Me” (Heb. 10:5)—so a corporate “Body” was prepared for Him. It was as essential as it is for a spirit to have a body for all practical purposes. (More on this later.) The other governing thing is that this election is not to salvation, willy nilly, but to purpose. This is fundamental to this whole Letter to the “Ephesians.” See how large and powerful a place the “eternal purpose” has in Paul’s mind and writings. It is that “purpose” that determines so much in God’s ways! The exhortations, the admonitions, the encouragements, the warnings, the entreaties, are all related to “His purpose” in salvation. How vastly much there is bound up with that drawing aside of the veil upon those eternal counsels! Out of them come the deliberations and activities of God: “Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will,” “according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:11,5, etc.). See also Romans 8:28–30.

We must, however, remember that there is one absolutely pre-eminent and predominant matter which determines everything and from which and to which all things are related. This is the one thing which explains everything which is in this Letter and all Scripture. It is the place of God’s Son. That indeed does explain the Calling, the Conduct and the Conflict. This, then, in and from eternity past, stands over all time and eternity to be; affecting, determining, governing “all things.” To substantiate this it is only necessary to pass an eye through this Letter and to note how often the Lord Jesus is actually mentioned. His personal name is mentioned some forty-four times, in addition to which note the many pronouns—“He,” “Him,” “His” and “Whom.”

It has often been said that the criterion by which truth or error in any system of religious teaching is determined is the place that it gives to the Son of God, Jesus Christ. That is a very sound criterion.

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Chapter 5 - The Tragic Interlude

We have mentioned that between the “before times eternal” and the first era of time there took place something which has affected in a tragic way the whole course of events. The Bible has much to say in relation to that, but Paul in his final three Letters (excluding those to Timothy, Titus and Philemon) gives a very strong place and meaning to that event. We refer to the invasion into the universe of

The Great Schism

As to the particular Letter with which we are occupied, there are three allusions to this cosmic disruption.

The first, and this is a supreme factor in the significance of Christ, is in a very brief phrase. The fuller context is this (chapter 1:9,10): “having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him (Christ) unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say....” The clause we want is “to sum up all things in Christ.”

The word (one long Greek compound) “to sum up” means “to bring back and to gather around the main point”, that is, “in Christ.” It is to re-gather the “all things.” In the companion letter, Colossians, Paul says: “For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth” (1:16). This means that originally all things were in God’s Son. That it should be necessary to say that in the fulness of the times all things would be re-gathered or brought back into Him clearly means that something happened to take things out of Him, or away from Him. Oh, what a lot there is that points to that! Jesus said that He came “to seek and to save that which was lost.” He gave a parable of wicked husbandmen who slew the heir in order to appropriate the inheritance. He said that “All that came before me are thieves and robbers” (John 10:. It is an aspect of truth which has an immense amount of teaching in the Scriptures. Something was done to rob God’s Son of His place and rights in the eternal purposing of God, making it necessary to re-gather, re-cover, re-unite. Back to that later.

The second thing pointing to that great event and breaking in of disruption is the state, the condition against which the purpose revealed in this Letter stands. It is a horrible picture.

“Dead through your trespasses and sins,” “Ye walked according to... the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience... in the lusts of our flesh... by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:1–3). “At that time separate from Christ (note that) ...having no hope and without God in the world” (2:12) ...as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God... being past feeling... lasciviousness... uncleanness...” (4:17,19). How did all this come about when all things were in God’s Son originally? All this is outside of, and apart from, Christ! Surely we can say of this: “An enemy hath done this.”

Very well: let us pass to the third thing in this Letter indicative of the great schism. How well known the words are, but how little known their vast, sinister context. “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” “Stand... withstand... having done all, stand” (Eph. 6:12–14).

Relations between the Son of God and some evil Power and his hosts have been so ruptured and disrupted that there can be no appeasement, no compromise, no fellowship, until that evil system has been destroyed beyond remedy. That great schism began somewhere outside of this earth; it then invaded the earth, and it has been the source and cause of all the schisms and disruptions in history. The Bible labels that responsible one Satan, the Devil.

For some time rationalism, liberal theology, psychology and certain philosophers ridiculed the existence of a personal Devil, and what the Bible attributes to him was explained as just neuroses and complexes; that is, evil is not anything to do with evil spirits or a “Satan,” it is nervous disorder, or at most good in the making. Demonology is only a form of mythology. So, Satan played a master trick by persuading men to believe that he does not exist. But the world has had some shocks in recent history and there has been a positively terrible unmasking of the most awful malignity in this world and in human behaviour. Not only in those realms which are called “savage,” “uncivilized,” and “backward,” but for sheer devilry, wickedness and calculated cruelty, nothing has ever been worse than that among what have been thought to be “cultured” and “advanced” peoples. Their very scientific “advancement” (?) has been employed for the most unspeakable horrors. We could write many pages on this line, but we refrain. The Bible is terribly vindicated as the course of this world proceeds, and not least in its unveiling of an evil personal power which is ill-disposed towards mankind and particularly to those who have allied themselves with God’s Son. The battle for unity is a painful and heart-rending conflict. The disruption of nations proceeds apace, and among God’s people there is nothing too sacred to escape this cosmic determination to disrupt the smallest approximation to Divine fellowship. Of course, there are many “societies” and “fraternities” which are left alone, but it is no compliment if Satan is not disturbed. Let us make no mistake about this matter. The Bible leaves us in no doubt that, at the end of the age, every element in the universe will assume unmistakable features of intensification. This, of course, is only logical if the end is fulness in every connection. Whatever your interpretation of Revelation twelve may be, we have to note that Satan’s shortening tenure of power is marked by his coming down to the earth with great wrath (Rev. 12:12).

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