Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

APPLIED TO OUR KNOWLEDGE

What about our Christian knowledge - all the teaching we have had, all the truth we possess? We have to apply the question here. How much of that great store of teaching and truth, doctrine and knowledge, is producing the incorruptible in us, is going to appear again in eternity? We have been, perhaps, to many conferences, we have had a great deal of teaching by one means and another. Well what is the upshot of it for eternity, when the fire tests our teaching, when the fire tests our knowledge, perhaps in this life? A great deal of teaching has been given in some lands, and now the fire is testing the incorruptible value of that teaching. What can survive and triumph over the fire? In all that we know, in our Christian profession, as we bear the name of Christ embodied in the title: 'Christian', Christ's one, how much of that very profession is more than a profession? Is it a possession, an intrinsic value, incorruptible reality? All our Christian tradition handed down from our fathers, all that we inherit through the centuries of Christianity; how much of it now is of this particular quality, this essential value, this essence of Christ, and how much is just form, habit, an established and recognised and accepted thing? How much of it in our case is incorruptible? All our emotions, our excitability, our noisiness - is there behind all that substantial element that will stand up against the fury of Satan, the hatred of hell?

As to ourselves, this matter of the incorruptible is a very pertinent thing and, if I mistake not, this is going to be the kind of thing that will be pressed home by God to the nth degree at the end-time. If, therefore, we are in the end-time, and it is not easy to doubt that, such a word is of importance. If we were to turn aside to consider the matter, we should find that never before was there so much in the Scriptures that was never understood, even by its writers, which today is intelligible with a mere modicum of intelligence. The very language of Scripture which could not possibly have been understood at the time when it was written is as patent as anything can be patent today. At such a time God would gather those who really mean business with Him, and He would begin to say: 'That is good, but there is something very much more than that: this is the thing that matters - the intrinsic value, the essential value'. He would put His finger upon the absolute essentials. How much of the very essence of Christ is wrought into us? That is the point.

APPLIED TO CHRISTIAN WORK

This question of the incorruptible has to be applied, of course, to Christian work and works, and everything must be tested by it. It is all very well - size, appearance, seeming, immediate effects, the trappings and the means - but what about the essential, intrinsic value? God does not judge by the size of a thing as it appears, by the seeming of things, nor by the immediate effects produced by man's means and methods. God is looking through. His eyes are the eyes as of a flame, and He looks right in to find the measure of the incorruptible that will not be gone in a week, a month, a year or a few years, but will go right on and appear again. He is looking for that.

There are two kinds of starting point - man's and God's. Man usually starts with big frameworks, with a big plant, machinery, publicity, structures and so on. That is how man usually starts when He is going to do something for God. It is a propensity: it is our way. We may argue that God is worthy of something big. That is man's way. God's way is never like that - it never was. You search in vain to find any instance of God beginning like that. Pentecost came out of very deep and drastic dealings with twelve men. God's starting point is always the intrinsic. God has always begun with life, with the inherent, with the potential. Man's beginnings usually end in only a small percentage of lasting value. God's beginnings always end in a very great percentage of lasting value. But God's beginnings seem so small, they appear so little. But so does a seed: it is a small thing, a little thing. Yet look at the potentialities in one seed, in one grain of wheat. It is the intrinsic with God. That is where God begins. That is why everything really of God has a long and hidden history of deep dealings on His part.

GOD'S SECRET WORK

The thirty years of our Lord's hidden life had a great bearing on the three and a half. The forty years of Moses away back there in the desert, looking after those sheep of his father-in law, had a great bearing on the rest of his life. They were not lost, wasted, futile years. And so we could take up one after another - Abraham, David, and others, who had a long deep, secret hidden history; it was out of that that the effectiveness came. Very often more is done, when God has been at work, in the last few years of a life than in all the years previously. That does not mean that all the previous years have been of no account, having no place. It means that God has been at work to get intrinsic values, and now at last these values are coming out. Young people must be careful not to write off older saints as back numbers. It may be a violation of the very principle of their own life - that of intrinsic value. But God have mercy on the older man or woman who has no intrinsic values! As we get older we ought to be the substance for the generation to follow. Everything must be judged not by time, but by the incorruptible.

God's greatest things are coming out of intrinsic values to make themselves known. Therefore He takes a lot of time and a lot of pains in secret history with that one object. It may be that, though you are thinking the years are going, soon life will be past, all over, and you have missed the way, everything being a problem, an enigma, yet it may be that in a few years an infinitude of spiritual value will come out of the time through which you are going, out of this which you think is lost time. You must adjust yourself to this, that God is not careful at all about our standards of values, either in time or in method or in any other way. What God is careful about is to have the inherent, the potential, the essential, the intrinsic. Lay that up in your hearts and cherish it and let it be a real governing factor with you. God works for depths. God works for solidity. God works for intensity. Therefore He works through testing, through hiddenness, and with very little appeal to our natural pleasure. Incorruption is therefore a very testing thing, and may demand a complete adjustment of our whole mentality.

Having reached this point, we are committed to an enquiry into the nature of the incorruptible. If all that we have said was true of the Lord Jesus, and if it is true that the Word of God teaches us that, Deity and Godhead apart, what was true of Him in this way is to be reproduced in His people, then we want to know what were the incorruptible things that constituted such a life, and we shall go on to look at these, for it is in this way that we shall have the best explanation of the matter under consideration.

[Shammu]

Chapter 2 - Incorruptible Characteristics of the Life of the Lord Jesus

Reading: 2 Timothy 1:8-10

The Lord Jesus was the embodiment of the incorruptible. Life and incorruption were embodied in Him in terms of manhood, as the true Man. We leave out of our present consideration His Deity, for very God of very God leaves no room for discussion or argument concerning incorruption. We will consider Him in His capacity as Son of Man, by which He makes the whole question and issue of the incorruptible a human question.

Man, or manhood, is a big and specific thought of God. The idea of Man, humanity, was born in the mind of God. He is a peculiar creation intended for a special purpose. When the writer of the letter to the Hebrews asserts that "Not unto angels did he subject the world to come", he proceeds to ask: "What is man?" (Hebrews 2:5-6). 'Not unto angels... but man...'. This, then, is not a matter which concerns angels and it is certainly not a matter of abstract and unrelated ideas. There is a testimony which has to be found in the concrete expression of man and manhood. The Bible makes it perfectly clear from beginning to end that the idea connected with man or manhood is that of representation. "In the image of God", in the likeness of God - that is representation. The question running all through the Bible is as to whether man does or does not fulfil the purpose of his being, which is to represent God, to express God.

Now man was made for incorruption, for incorruptible life issuing eventually in his glorification. I am not going to argue that from the Scripture, for those who know their Bibles will be able to support the statement. But man missed the purpose of his creation, he missed the incorruptible life, by his disobedience and unbelief, by his rebellion against God, his self-will, his pride. He is no longer a candidate for glory in his natural condition. Glory is not possible for man as he is found outside of Christ. But Christ came, and in His coming fulfilled a work by which the destiny and purpose of man was recovered and secured. In Christ, incorruptible life is recovered for man, for He was a Man who could not be corrupted, and therefore corruption was kept out of the very stream of His life. It was not possible that He should see corruption even in the grave. "He whom God raised up saw no corruption" (Acts 13:37). He was incorruptible in His life and therefore triumphant over corruption in His death. So Christ was constituted of incorruptible characteristics, and we are now going to ask what these were.

A RELATIONSHIP ESTABLISHED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

The first, then, of these characteristics was His union with God as His Father - a simple but most profound truth. We are aware of how often He used that word: 'Father', and how often He said: 'My Father' and then: 'The Father and I'. His enemies saw the point; they were not slow to pick on what they thought was blasphemy: "He makes Himself equal with God" (John 5:18). That union between Him and the Father was of such a kind that their relationship was absolute and final. That relationship was established by the Holy Spirit. I am speaking now of Christ as the Son of Man. In His birth He was begotten of the Holy Ghost. In His work, He functioned by reason of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. His walk was always in and by the Spirit. In His Cross, He offered Himself up by the eternal Spirit. And we can complete the circle by saying that it was through that eternal Spirit that He was raised. The Holy Spirit initiated, maintained and consummated that relationship with the Father. The union with the Father was the governing thing in His whole life. At every point, at all times, He referred and deferred to God as His Father. All His works were out from the Father: "The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me" (John 14:24). Everything for Him was out from the Father, by way of this union, this oneness, and this was the occasion of all the conflict in His life. It was the very point of all the attack and assault of the enemy. The one thing that the Evil One and all the evil powers were ever focusing upon was this oneness and fellowship with the Father, in order to try somehow to drive in a wedge, to get that relationship ruptured. That is very significant. If an enemy concentrates all his attention and all his resources on any one point, it is clear that he regards that as the point upon which the whole matter can be made to collapse. It did not matter which method the enemy used - whether open antagonism or friendly suggestion or subtle subterfuge, or any other means - the point was to try to get between the Father and the Son.

THE EXPLANATION OF HIS SUFFERING

That union, then, that relationship, was the explanation of all His sufferings and testings - indeed of the whole ordeal of His life. Would He, on any consideration, let go, violate the principle of that union? To maintain and preserve it, to adhere to it, was no small or light thing for Him. For that one thing, the most terrible cost ever paid in the history of the universe was paid, the cost of that dark moment of the Cross when everything seemed lost. There was not one glimmer of light, even from the Father's face, while He was under that test. Yes, this was a costly thing. There must have been some very great issue involved in this union. There was nothing superficial about it, but rather something infinitely great. What was it?

[Shammu]

PROVIDING GOD WITH A PLACE

It can be answered in one brief sentence. Primarily, it was the issue of providing God with a place. God created the first man in order that He might have a place in that man and in all his seed; and not just a place, but the place. In a sense God's place had been taken from Him. God had been rejected and put out of His place with man. He still remained sovereign Creator, of course. He still remained Ruler and Lord, the original Owner, but there was a difference. Let us look at it like this.

Here is a landlord. He builds a house and he is the owner of that house. In kindness and friendliness he lets that house to some people, and to begin with, the relationship is quite a happy one, so happy that he is able to visit the house and is welcomed and given a place in the family; they are always glad to see him. But someone comes along while he is not there and begins to say things about him that are unworthy and that are scandalous, defaming him and making evil suggestions against him, with a view to getting him out of his place in that home. This evil person succeeds so well that no longer has he a place in the heart of that family. He is still the landlord, the rightful owner, and all the law is on his side, but there is a difference between being a landlord with legal rights and a friend who has a place in the family. That is what I mean. God lost His place. He is still sovereign Owner of this universe. He is still Lord, and one day He will assert His legal rights over His creation. But do you think that is good enough? Within His creation He wants to have a place.

There is all the difference between sovereignty and fellowship. The union between Christ and His Father was not the relationship of a sovereign and a subject. He did not live that life and do that work under the sovereign government of God. No, it was all on a different footing from that. It was fellowship. God can do a lot of things with us and through us in a sovereign way, but that is never, never good enough for Him. He wants us in fellowship; He wants a place, not as sovereign and despot, but as Father. Father! That is the significance of the word on the lips of the Lord Jesus. He taught them to pray: 'Father'. The significance, then, of the relationship between Christ and God as His Father was that God had a place in the heart of a Man.

The Bible is occupied with that one concern; that is the issue which arises all the way through. God is seeking to have a place in the heart of man - somewhere where He can be known in terms of fellowship, of love, in terms of a delight to have Him. The Old Testament is full of that in type and illustration. He seeks some place for His Name, where His Name is loved, some place where He can meet men on the ground of fellowship and love. The New Testament brings that out into bold relief. Its beginnings contain links between the Old and the New. Christ, as Son of Man, is the inclusive link. Here again is the law of incorruptibility. There is that which will go through to eternity, something that Satan cannot destroy, something that death cannot annul. There is something that is so precious to God that it will appear again for ever. When all that is capable of corruption has gone, the love relationship as between Christ and His Father will abide. Oh, what a difference there is between this and the kind of relationship with God that exists in general!

This, of course, is clearly seen to be the idea of the New Testament as to the individual. This is what God is after with us all. It is just that - to have a place in our hearts on the basis of love and fellowship. "My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23). That, too, is the idea concerning the nucleus - that they, even the little companies of the two and three, should give Him a place. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I" (Matthew 18:20) and: "I come unto you" (John 14:18). And it is the New Testament idea of the whole Church. What does the Church mean in the divine thought? Just a place for God in love relationship, in perfect fellowship. That is the idea of the Church.

So, then, if Christ meant anything, He signified the coming of God into this world in terms of fellowship. And this is an eternal issue. If we could project ourselves into the ages of the ages, the eternal hereafter, and see the nature of things, as it will be then, we should find it was just this: a perfect harmony between God and man, so harmonious that it is all music. There is no discord, no strain, no shadow; there is no suspicion, no prejudice, no fear. All those things have gone with the corruptible: it is the incorruptible which remains. And in this first place the incorruptible is this - fellowship with God. It is this kind of relationship. It is an eternal issue.

[Shammu]

THE TEST OF EVERYTHING

Therefore the test of everything for us will be: How much of God came in by our having been here? That is a fairly thorough-going test. It may sound very exacting, but it is just this - how much of God came in by your and my having been here? How much, afterward, will it be possible for others to say: 'Well, through that life I came to know God, I came to fellowship with God, to know more of Him'?

Yes, that is testing and discriminating. The test of everything, of all our teaching and all our labours, is how much of it results in more of God - not more of knowledge, not more of mental apprehension, but how much more of God? As I have talked with others about the life-work and teaching of certain men of God in the past, we have agreed that even though there may have been things in their teaching which we did not feel able to accept, they themselves had left us a heritage, they have given us a deposit of God. There is something of the Lord that has come through them to us, and that is what marks them out to us. It is not just that they were great teachers, great organisers of Christian work, but that somehow they have passed to us a deposit of God; God has come through them to the enrichment and enlargement of our lives.

That is the test of everything. For me, at least, it is a searching test - one that I wonder whether I can face. Is it going to be like that, that after all the speaking, after all the teaching, there is a heritage of the Lord Himself left behind? The teaching of the truths about the Church as the House of God is important, but we need to beware of putting the emphasis on the truth of the thing, instead of the spiritual reality of how it works out. This issue is this - that God comes in. His place is provided, He is there. We have many meetings and other Christian activities, but if they do not issue in the people concerned having something more of the Lord Himself, then the whole thing is futile. Yes, with all our exact technique and the rest - if the Lord is not found there, it is meaningless, valueless. All must be related to this one issue, that of God having His own rightful place. That is the incorruptible element.

This is what the apostle says in our Scripture: "Be not ashamed... of the testimony of our Lord". What is this testimony of our Lord? It is that He: "annulled death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel". The testimony of our Lord is His incorruptible life. In His life here on earth the Lord Jesus provided a place for God, and there was no place in His life for anything else. Oh, that we might be like that! It will be that which will determine the measure of the permanent, the eternal, the intrinsic value of our lives.

[Shammu]

Chapter 3 - The Crown of the Incorruptible

"An inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you..." (1 Peter 1:4)

The verdict of the long run, that is, what abides as incorruptible when all else has passed, is the verdict upon life and work. How much will be found afterwards to the praise and glory of God? That word 'incorruptible', then, is the word which governs all, is the standard of all.

GLORY THE CROWN OF THE INCORRUPTIBLE

The crown of the incorruptible is glory. That is the verdict upon the life of the Lord Jesus. John says, many years afterwards: "we beheld his glory" (John 1:14). That was the issue. Neither John nor any of his fellow-apostles was very much alive to it while the Lord was with them; nevertheless He was gaining on them all the time, He was overtaking them. Eventually they were left with one deep and indelible impression which stood the test of many years, many experiences, many trials, much suffering; and at last, at the end of that particular phase, the apostolic age, John, the one lonely remaining apostle of the whole group, wrote the verdict: "We beheld his glory" - the glory of the incorruptible.

Peter also, at the end of his life, when he was saying that he was about to be offered up, recorded the same verdict. Referring to that wonderful experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, he wrote: "We were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory" (2 Peter 1:16,17) - the verdict of the incorruptible.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews, whom I always suspect as being Paul, said: "We behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour" (Hebrews 2:9). Whether that was Paul or not, it was someone who passed the same verdict; but Paul did join in with the words: "Now unto the King eternal, incorruptible... be honour and glory". The verdict of the incorruptible is glory.

We have been seeing that the glory of Christ was due to certain incorruptible characteristics. First, His union with His Father; something so deep, so real, so unshakeable, as to abide all tests and go right through, in spite of all the efforts of man and demons and the very Devil himself to part the Two, to come between them. That union with the Father was uninterrupted; it went through. And we said that the Lord Jesus made it perfectly clear that such a union as existed between Him and His Father could exist between us and Himself, and with the Father; not in Deity, but in real, living organic oneness and fellowship; by being born of God. That union is the basis of glory. It is something incorruptible.

MAN MADE FOR GLORY

'O loving wisdom of our God!
  When all was sin and shame,
A final Adam to the fight
  And to the rescue came.

'O wisest love! that flesh and blood,
  Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe,
  Should strive and should prevail.'

Paul it is who calls Jesus "the second man", "the last Adam". Our hymn-writer made a little slip, and so we correct; not a second Adam but a last Adam. A second man, a last Adam. Paul indicates that God takes another step in a second man, and a final and inclusive step in a last Adam. Christ is God's next move and Christ is God's final move, but Christ comes into the place which the first Adam held as representing the intention of God concerning man. As we are thrown back, by this way in which Paul speaks of Him, to the first man Adam, we are shown by the Scriptures that God's intention for man was that he was to be glorified, to be "crowned with glory" (Hebrews 2:7). He was made for glory. That is the definite statement of Scripture.

But that glory was conditioned upon life, a peculiar life, the particular life of God. The glory was contingent upon man having that life, because the glory was the very essence of that life; that particular divine life held all the nature and potentiality of glory. So the glory depended upon his having that life, and that life was dependent upon faith and obedience - upon whether man would believe God to be true, to be honest, to be faithful, that God meant what He said: and so believing, would act accordingly, that is be obedient to God. The life was contingent or dependent upon that.

MAN'S FALLING SHORT OF GOD'S GLORY

But we know that man did not believe God, did not trust God, did not take the attitude that God was to be trusted. He disbelieved, and acted accordingly; he disobeyed. The result was that he brought into his own being, and into all his seed, first corruption and then death. A state of corruption entered into his moral being, and that corruption led to death. Thus, for that man, the prospect of glory ended, the intention of his being came to a full-stop. No glory for that man. Heaven is closed, the glory departs; man is excluded.

But man strangely did not accept that divine verdict. This thing had become such a positive factor in his being, this corruption was so active, that he refused to accept the verdict, and set out upon a course of making his own glory, getting glory for himself. The history of man is the history of an effort to get glory without getting it from God. That covers a very great deal. It started very early in the Bible story, and we see it going all the way through; but the glory of man, as we have said earlier, always ends in corruption. However much glory he draws to himself, however much he achieves of that which is called "the glory of man" it ends in corruption. We who are at the end of the history of this world - as it now is - are seeing how the glory of man is bringing his own undoing, the most universal corruption. That is the glory of man. Is that glory? He cannot help himself, he is energised by another power, he is not his own master. He calls it glory and the thing which is so strange is the blindness of man all the time. He wages a war and calls it 'a war to end war', and he wages a worse war and thinks and believes that this surely is the end of war, and on he goes and still it gets worse and worse; and now it is true that we are in sight of the disintegration of humanity, and the possibility of the wiping out of the human race. We understand today, more than ever it could possibly have been understood before, the meaning of our Lord's words: "except those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved" (Matthew 24:22). Is that not true? That is our present condition - corruption with false glory.

[Shammu]

CHRISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF GLORY

But another Adam came. There are three statements made regarding Him. "The Word was made flesh" - that is the Incarnation. "In him was life" - that is the incorruption. "We beheld his glory" - that is the effect of the life. Glory works out from the life, and this final Adam, this last Adam, retrieves the loss of the first: He secures a life that was missed, secures the incorruptibility that was never known, and secures the glory. That is the story of Christ in three words - life, incorruptibility, glory. In those three words He comes to us, and says: 'Have faith in Me, believe in Me, and life, that life, is for you' and through that life offers us incorruptibility and glory. From one point of view Christianity may be described as a system of glory. God is called "the God of glory" (Acts 7:2). Christianity is a family and its Father called: "The Father of glory". Paul spoke of: "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory" (Ephesians 1:17). Christ, who brought Christianity into being, is called: "the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:. The Holy Spirit, the energy of this whole heavenly system, is called "the Spirit of glory" (1 Peter 4:14). So the three Persons of the divine Trinity are all related to glory, all interested in glory.

The Father produces the whole system of glory; it emanates from Him as Father. The Son, as the Lord of glory, is governing everything in relation to glory. What a glorious statement that is, how much is gathered into it - the Lord of glory. So we have in our Bible a whole book containing the record of the activities of the Lord of glory. Situations and positions seem at first sight all the work of the Devil, all the work of devil-inspired and energised people - situations so difficult that they look hopeless. And that book contains the verdict of the long run, that every one of those situations was turned to glory, something glorious came out of every hopeless and impossible situation. The Lord of glory was seeing to that.

The Spirit of glory, so called by Peter in a context when believers are passing through fiery trial; they are persecuted, they are misunderstood, they are slandered, they are misrepresented. And Peter says: 'It is all right, if you take this humbly, if you take this without bitterness; the Spirit of glory will rest upon you'; that is, in adversity believers find that right in the midst of persecution and opposition, something of inexplicable joy rises up, a deep and wonderful peace. The persecutors hurl their stones, or whatever else they may do, and somehow there is a glory in the heart. That is the story of many a martyr, of many a murdered servant of God - the Spirit of glory. Glory is not some place to which we are going presently, although glory may be a sphere in which everything is glorious: glory is for now. It is a part of the very life that we have now received. It is the essence of Christ in us, as the hope of glory. It is the very nature of what we have received through faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord wants us to have a life and to live according to that life, which will produce more and more glory in us. It will again be only as we live according to that incorruptible life that the glory will be manifested.

CHRIST THE PATTERN

So we have to look again at the One who has set for us the pattern, indicated the principles of the incorruptible which result in glory; to look at what was true of Him, as this incorruptible One, that resulted in God giving Him glory. One or two things I will indicate because they are very important. Firstly, it was His inward separation from sin. There was a great gap between Him and sin. It is said of Him that He "knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21), that He was "separated from sinners" (Hebrews 7:26). That is, that in His nature He was separate from the rest of men, there was an inward separation. Now, we are not constituted as He was, as sinless, but we are told and made to understand in the New Testament that that inward separation which was so true of Him, can be made true in us. Paul has a way of putting it. He calls it: "the circumcision of Christ" (Colossians 2:11), and he says that it is a thing of the heart, an inward separating between what we are in ourselves and what we are in Christ, the putting of a gap between the two. And then the New Testament says that by the Holy Spirit's enablement, by the Holy Spirit's power, you need not live on the ground of what you are in yourself, you can live on the ground of Christ, and living on the ground of Christ you need not be the slave of yourself and your sinfulness, you are delivered. There is something that has separated inside, and if you live on the ground of what Christ is and not on the ground of what you are in yourself, you are on the ground of the incorruptible and you are on the ground of the glory.

That sounds very technical, I know, but it is very practical. We know it very well. We who are Christians know that a cleavage has been made in us, and that we are now two people. There is that side which is our new life, our new relationship, which is our Christ-connection. There is that other side which is still our old relationship with the old Adam. It is there: it is not cauterised, it is not annihilated; and we know now that it is for us to take continually the power of the Holy Spirit, in virtue of that separating Cross, to keep on the Christ side, on the new side; and if we do, we know that it is glory. Very often we know more of the meaning of the glory by a touch of the other. Step over on to the other side and give way to the old Adam, and you know quite well there is no glory there.

Now that thing existed perfectly, fully and finally in the case of the Lord Jesus; but the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of that glory has come into us to make the divide, and the Christian who has the most glory is the Christian who is walking most on the Christ side of the line. There was the divine in Him, of course; there were no two natures, there was no need for dividing between a sinful nature and a divine nature in Him; but there was a constant gap between Him and sinful man. The enemy, the great enemy of the glory, was ever seeking to contaminate Him, involve Him, pollute Him, corrupt Him. Do not let us think that He never had to resist anything, that He never had to say 'No' to another. That matter of how a sinless Man could be tempted is of course an old theological problem, but there is no doubt about it that He fought our battle in all reality. So that is the first thing - an inward separation, a divide, and on the one side the new life, the ground of the incorruptible, which is the ground of glory. "This mystery," says Paul, "which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

[Shammu]

OUTWARD SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD

The inward separation had its outward effect or outworking in separation from the world, and no one will think for a moment that I mean physical separation from the world. No, He was here right in it, in its throng and press, in its affairs, with everything pressing upon Him; never seeking to live the life of a hermit, detached from the world, but right in it - and yet while rubbing shoulder to shoulder with the world, having all the contacts of this world in every form, there was a distinctiveness about Him. He was not a part of it, but apart from it, a wonderful outward separation. While being able to talk with the grossest and the most defiled and the people most involved in this world, He was yet by no means a part of their system, their order, their way of life, but outwardly separate from the world. The most unhappy people in this world are Christians who try to have both worlds. It is my experience that if you want to find a miserable Christian, you must find what is called 'a worldly Christian', one in whom a constant civil war goes on between two kingdoms. Yes, a Christian in this world, trying to get something out of this world is a miserable creature. I used to illustrate it by the old Border battles between Scotland and England. The people who lived in the Border country never had a day's rest all their lives. One day it would be the overrunning from one side, the next day from the other side, and these poor people on the Border line had the most miserable existence possible. It is like that. You try to live on a border-line or border-land Christian life and you will be a miserable person, without rest or peace or joy or anything else. You will never know exactly where you are, who is your master, which way you are going, to whom you belong. It is a miserable existence.

The Lord Jesus was not like that. He was on one side and absolutely on one side. The border line was a very wide one for Him. Indeed, there was no border line. He was attached to heaven, and He maintained that attachment. You and I, if we are going to know glory now and glory afterward, will have to be on the same ground as He was in this matter - no compromise with the world; in it, having to do our work here, having to meet people here, having to be friendly in a way, yet not one with their nature, their realm, their way. It is a difficult thing - not as easy to do as to say - it works out in many practical ways. The point is that Christ was wholly for God, and because of that, His Father was the Father of glory, and the Spirit of glory rested upon Him, and the Father could give Him glory.

CHRIST'S HUMANITY WAS GLORIFIABLE

Christ's humanity was a glorifiable humanity. Not all humanity, indeed no other humanity, is glorifiable. His was a unique humanity, capable of being glorified, and it was glorified. Paul speaks of His body as a glorified body. He said that we are to be "conformed to the body of his glory" (Philippians 3:21). He was capable of being glorified, and that actually took place on the Mount of Transfiguration. He had fought through all those tests and trials, all those efforts to compromise Him, to make Him let go and become involved. He had fought them right through to the pinnacle of that mount. There was nothing more for Him to do, so far as He was concerned; anything more was for us. At that point He had proved Himself worthy of being glorified, and as Peter says, on that mount God gave Him glory. In the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus, God is showing in a representative Man what He intends for you and for all - that we shall be transfigured, glorified, made like Him. His was a glorifiable humanity. His humanity as glorified is the standard in heaven to which God is working for every believer in Jesus Christ. It is a Man in glory glorified, and He is there as the last Adam, the second Man. Those very titles have no significance apart from other men of the same kind. What does 'Adam' mean? What does 'man' mean, if it is not an inclusive and comprehensive and representative designation? The Scripture states that quite clearly: "the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29). This is what He was to be, as many other Scriptures confirm.

I believe that was the secret of the apostle Paul's life, from the very first day of his conversion, right up to the end when, after so many years, and after seeing and knowing so much, he was still found aspiring, still stretched out. He had seen Jesus of Nazareth glorified, and he said: 'That is the on-high calling!' This is so much in keeping with what we have read in the letter to the Hebrews. We read: "We behold... Jesus... crowned with glory and honour" and then we read on: "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling..." (Hebrews 3:1). What is this heavenly calling? It is Jesus crowned with glory, as the Man according to God's eternal intention for man. Christ in a glorified humanity is the model, the pattern, the representation of God's intention for all who believe in the Lord Jesus.

So then, if we have received that eternal life, if Christ is in us, dwelling in our hearts through faith, this is our destiny. We have the basis of an incorruptible life, which will eventually emerge in the fullness of that glory which He, as our Representative, now knows. Faith not only believes for the forgiveness of sins, not only for pardon, not only for justification and redemption. Faith in Jesus Christ apprehends Him as the very humanity to which we are to be conformed. Faith takes hold of Him as He is now, and says: 'He is as He is because God wants me to be like that'; and, if we did but know, the Spirit of glory is operating for us on that basis every day, to make us like Him, to transform us that we may be transfigured, to conform us to His image. All the meaning of the activities and methods of the Spirit of God in our lives is to lay a foundation for glory.

And it is on these principles of the incorruptible. May the Lord teach us how to keep clear of this corrupted world, how to keep clear of that wretched, corrupt old man. You remember that magnificent, though so simple, picture that Bunyan has given us of the man with the muck rake who has a crown of glory over his head, who is so occupied with his rake and so obsessed with what is down in the mud, that he does not see the glory but misses it all. That muck is our old man, and we are always turning him over to see if we can find something good in him, some glory. We are seemingly incapable of learning this one lesson, that there is no glory in that realm. We should finish all these investigations and lift up our eyes to the Lord of glory. This is how we will find the way of glory. Let us keep on the glory line.

The End

Up next; The Temple and the Tabernacle of God

[Shammu]

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 Temple and the Tabernacle of God
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1

"And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for the LORD must be exceeding magnifical, of fame and of glory throughout all countries: I will therefore now make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death." 1 Chron. 22:5.

"And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither: declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel." Ezek. 40:4.

"Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts." Haggai 2:3,9.

"Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body." John 2:19-21.

"In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Eph. 2:21-22.

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 1 Cor. 3:16-17.

"And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened... And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God." Rev. 15:5, 21:3. "And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Rev. 3:14-22.

There seems to be a very forceful significance about the way in which the Lord introduces Himself to the church at Laodicea. You notice the state of things represent a state of spiritual blindness, which means that the truth is not seen, especially the truth as to their own state, a state of self-satisfaction, self-fulness, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-glory. As the Lord sees them He sees a lie and a deception, just exactly the opposite of the way in which they see themselves. They think they are rich, He sees that they are poor; they think they have glory, He sees them as being rejected; they think they know, He sees that they are in blind ignorance. The whole thing is, though they do not recognise it, a falsehood from every standpoint and the opposite of what the Lord would have and requires. There was an utter falling short of the divine mind.

To a state like that the Lord presents Himself as the Amen: “These things saith the Amen...” (Rev. 3:14). We understand that word to mean the Verily, the Truly. It is a word which was frequently on His lips in the days of His flesh. Whenever He was going to present something of particular and peculiar meaning and value, and importance; something that could not be set aside; something that must be taken account of; something that would govern, determine and fix destiny, He prefaced the statement with: “Verily, verily, I say unto you”. It is the same word as is used here—“Verily”, “Amen”, “most truly”. I think one version puts it “Of most certain truth I say unto you...”. “These things saith the Amen.”—that is final, that is settled, that is something you cannot get past; it is presented to you as God’s last word.

Here then is what God presents in Christ. The Amen becomes personal. It is not a word now, not a saying, not an utterance, but a person. “These things saith the Amen.” It is the designation of the Person, the One Who in Himself is God’s final standard, the Verity, the faithful and true Witness. Christ comes before this church and, in effect, He says, I am the standard, there is nothing after Me, I have the final word, I represent the uttermost thought of God: you have to stand and measure yourself by Me. So you see the lie in the presence of the truth, the deception in the presence of the “verily”, all that is falling short of God’s thought in the presence of the full revelation of that thought in Christ. The way in which He introduces Himself to the Laodicean church is most significant. So the false is measured by the true. The one side of the balance is the Amen and the other side their state, with which they are so satisfied, which they think to be so perfect, so glorious. Over against the Amen, they go up in the balances and there is an exposure which calls for repentance, rectification and adjustment.

That forms the background of our consideration and of our spiritual exercise and ministry for all the Lord’s people at this time. It is seeing God’s truth as revealed in the person of His Son, as over against things as they are, which men may think to be all right while they are utterly contrary to that presentation. Ezekiel the prophet, in a day when the temple in Jerusalem was in ruins, was shown a spiritual temple measured out by a man with a golden measuring reed. We know how exact were all the measurements, how thorough was the work of measuring and presentation to the prophet; how the prophet was led in, led through, led round, led out, led up, set down, all under the government of this angel with the measuring reed. He was shown the outside, he was shown the inside, he was shown from above. From every angle, every aspect, every detail, this spiritual temple which was God’s mind exactly expressed, a temple which has never yet been on this earth in a literal form and expression, was shown to him. For Ezekiel it was a spiritual thing, and it remains that until now. Then the comment to Ezekiel was, “Son of man show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed...” (Ezek. 43:10). There is one temple on earth, another temple of spiritual revelation; one that has failed to answer to God’s thought, the other that is the expression of God’s thought; the other brought into view in the day when the one is destroyed.

That is not only prophecy but it is also a figure. Adam was the former temple, and the first Adam is in ruins as regards what God intended he should be, His temple—made, formed for His dwelling. In the day when the first Adam is in ruins, the last Adam is brought into view as God’s perfect temple in Whom He will dwell for ever, and where there will be no ruin. It is the temple and the tabernacle of God that is before us as the mind of God expressed in Christ.

Israel stands as a type for all ages and dispensations from the beginning onward, touching the whole thought of God. We have referred to Adam. Well, Israel sets forth in type what God’s thought was concerning Adam. The central and supreme thing in Israel’s life was the temple, and that had a backward aspect as well as a forward aspect, it looked right back to God’s intention at the beginning in the creation of man, and looks right on to God’s end when that intention is fully realised in Christ and His body, the church. When Adam was made it was the result of these counsels of the Godhead: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). All that that means we do not know, and we dare not speculate upon it, but this we can most certainly conclude that if God determines to make something in His Own image, after His Own likeness, it will be exceeding magnificent, it will be the expression of His thoughts which are always surpassing thoughts.

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Even in this poor, marred, death-stricken creation we are able to discern and detect and trace the marks of God’s mind. We look upon the beauties—as they still remain in large measure—in this earth and there we see expressed or reflected the thought of God and we wonder, we marvel. We sit down before a simple flower and marvel. When God does something for Himself it bears the marks of what He is. David was right when he said: “...the house that is to be built for the Lord must be exceeding magnifical...” (1 Chron. 22:5). “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...”. What was it for? It was to be a house of God, that God might dwell with men and be in them. He made man for that purpose, for His Own glory. Trace the various and numerous references to a house of God, a dwelling place of God, and you will always find that, sooner or later, you come upon the revelation of the glory of God in connection therewith. The house will, sooner or later, be filled with His glory. That is the great climax of this purpose.

Israel’s temple is but a type of Adam in intention, to be indwelt by God and filled with God’s glory; that in him and through him the glory of God should be displayed. If we have any doubt about it in the backward look, surely all those doubts are dispelled immediately we take the forward look. We take a look at the one Man as we see Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and we see Him crowned with glory and honour. Then we are told that He is but the first, and that He is bringing many sons to glory, and that we are to be joined with Him, as members of His body with the same glory. There is no doubt whatever that Adam was created for this very purpose, and man is in existence to be God’s temple. The temple, then, is a type of man according to God’s purpose in a backward look.

The temple of Israel came to ruins. Why? We know one thing, and one thing only, which was responsible for it all. The Lord had always, from the time that He had chosen Israel, laid down with tremendous emphasis the law that there was to be no fellowship with the nations round about, because of the spiritual alliances of those nations with evil forces. It was not just a matter of being unfriendly, of being exclusive, having nothing to do with people. The Lord saw deeper than that. His dealings with the Egyptians were only a secondary thing. The primary thing was against all the gods of the Egyptians. So in Canaan it was the relationship of the nations with satanic forces which made it necessary for them to be blotted out. So the Lord’s people had to be kept clear and clean of all such fellowship and alliance because of the spiritual kingdom.

When Israel entered into relationships with the nations round about on a friendly basis, the glory of the Lord departed from the house of the Lord, the temple lost its glory and remained a mere shell for a time, while prophets pleaded, entreated, warned, and we get the long and terrible story of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and others, calling back to a break with these nations, a purging, a cleansing. That is why, when a remnant returned, Ezra and Nehemiah laboured so ardently to get out the mixture from the people in their merged relationships, because the principle was still there that any kind of spiritual alliance was spiritual fornication and God could have nothing to do with it. Israel’s persistence in complicity with those nations led to the ruin of their temple.

It is again a type with its backward aspect, God creating for His temple, He being in touch, in fellowship, and communion. Then there came complicity with Satan, resulting in the ruin of the temple, the ruin of that race and that man, personally and corporately.

Now you must remember that there is a sinister purpose behind all this. If God created man with the purpose of indwelling him (I am not saying that when Adam was created God indwelt him in the full sense as He indwells the believer now, as He indwelt Christ, but that was the object in view), the impressive thing is that through the ages the one dominating ambition of Satan has been to indwell men. It would be speculating to get back beyond the record of the Word of God. Some have done that and spoken about Satan losing his body, being cast out of his body, and becoming a disembodied spirit with one eternal longing to inhabit a body. That is deduction from certain things in the Word of God that demons are always seeking to possess bodies. There is no doubt about it that demon possession is a dominating objective of the forces of Satan, to get possession of a body. When the demons pleaded as they were being cast from the man that they should not be cast into mere air, but be allowed to enter into the bodies of the swine, it seems clear that a disembodied state for them evidently represented something full of terror, and Satan has as his main objective the entering in and possessing of a temple. He will enter in at last into the Antichrist.

You see there can be no such thing as a vacuum. If God is not in, Satan will be in sooner or later. You will remember the illustration given by the Lord Jesus of this matter, about the house from which the demon had been cast out, he wandered in solitary places and found no rest. He returned and found that the house was still empty, and he took seven other demons worse than himself and entered in. The disaster came because the house was not occupied already.

All this bears upon the point that Satan is represented as clamouring to possess, to enter in, to have a temple, a habitation. It is the counter of God. God made man in order to inhabit him. Satan is seeking to get God’s place in man. Complicity with Satan proved to be the ruin of man, the ruin of the temple, just as is illustrated in the Word in the case of Israel and their temple. Complicity with Satan behind the nations meant ruin of their temple.

What were the results? The results were that in the case of the temple of Israel God withdrew. The temple was overthrown, the enemy of Israel came into the place of power, and Israel and the vessels of the temple were possessed by the enemy and used for his glory and pleasure. It is all very clearly typical and illustrative. First of all when Adam brought about the ruin, God withdrew. Then the temple lay waste, broken. Then the enemy assumed the place of power over the temple and the man and all that which in man had been to the glory and service and pleasure of God was taken, and has ever since been used to the satisfaction of Satan. That is how we find man.

What was the governing law of all this, illustrated in Israel, actual in the case of man? The governing law was heart fellowship with God by faith.

If you get hold of that one thing you have hold of a key that opens almost everything, if not everything with which we have to do. It is HEART fellowship by faith. In Adam it was a question of his heart relationship with God, his heart fellowship with God by faith. Everything hung upon that, and everything still hangs upon that. We shall see what that means. We just mention it here and pass on for a moment, and then return to it presently.

Next we come to certain prophetic hints. The temple is in ruins, God withdrawn. But it is not left there. As we saw at the outset, when Israel’s temple was in ruins Ezekiel was shown a spiritual temple, perfect to a detail. It is a hint, and it is something more than a hint. In the day when the temple was broken down the word of the Lord by Haggai was: “Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? ...is it not in your eyes as nothing? ...The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former...”. It is a prophetic hint. That house has never yet been in greater glory than Solomon’s, and whether there has to be a literal temple of this earth with glory greater than that of Solomon’s temple will not concern us very much, we have looked higher and we have seen the veil drawn away and the temple or tabernacle in heaven appearing and then coming down from heaven—“The tabernacle of God is with men.” Solomon’s temple is not going to drop out of heaven, or anything like that. It is a spiritual temple that comes out of heaven. The latter state is greater than the former. There are many of these prophetic hints.

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[Shammu]

In connection with what do they hint? Christ! They look on to Christ. Only Christ can transcend all that has been, and He does, because He fulfils all types. The last Adam is greater than the first, the last temple is greater than the former. All prophecy leads on to Him. So Christ comes into view when the temple is in ruins. Christ is presented as God’s eternal reality, not a type, nor a pattern, but a reality, of which these others were but patterns and types. He is seen as God’s temple: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up... But he spake of the temple of his body.” Adam, we are told, was a type “of him that was to come”, and if Adam was to be God’s temple it was only in type. The types have broken down. Christ is the reality; He is God’s temple. God dwelt in Him, and dwells in Him Who is the Verily of God, the Amen, the last Adam, the positive, the final, the conclusive.

Then, when you see Christ brought in as God’s eternal reality in the matter of God’s dwelling place, God’s temple, God’s habitation, you have to remember that as that temple is revealed here on earth it was governed by a number of laws. His life was governed by various spiritual laws. There are the laws of the House of God, the laws of the temple, and Christ being as God’s dwelling place was governed by these spiritual laws. It is those spiritual laws that we have to consider presently, but what we want to do at the moment is to see that Christ on earth sets forth what God’s temple is, and if we are going to be living stones, built into that temple, if we are to be built together, a habitation of God, what is true of Christ has got to be true of us as to the laws which govern the house of God. To put it in another way with Paul, there must be a conforming of us to the image of God’s Son, so that we, with Him, form one temple, one house of God, one habitation of God through the Spirit.

That brings us to one of these laws. We look back again to trace the inception of ruin. Where and how did ruin begin? It began before ever it touched this creation, it began before ever it came to Adam. We are allowed to look through and see what the inception of ruin was, and we gather from what the Word of God says that it was pride of heart: “For thou hast said in thine heart... I will exalt my throne above the stars... I will be like the Most High.” It was pride of heart which was the inception of ruin, in the case of Satan, and in the case of the first Adam the first personal and representative habitation of God. We need not trace it through again. We are familiar with the story. Whatever we have to say about Adam’s reaction to Satan’s temptation, it all resolves itself into a matter of pride of heart. What is pride? Or, to put the question in another way, How did that pride of heart express itself? What were its features? The features are exactly similar with Satan and Adam. When once pride of heart is there you have the same results: firstly, independence; secondly, possession; thirdly, self-centredness in the fullest sense; (that is, having things in oneself, no longer in another, no longer outside of oneself: I can! I know! I will! I have!); fourthly, self-exaltation “I will be”). There you have pride analysed at its very root: independence—no longer a dependent being; possession—possessiveness, taking hold, getting it into our own hands; self-centredness and self-exaltation. That is pride of heart. It is the explanation of ruin.

What were the immediate results? First, death. Satan became the very seat and centre of death and “death passed upon all men”, by complicity with him. We need not analyse death but merely state the fact. Secondly, darkness. What is spiritual darkness? Well, we have referred to Laodicea—blind, but not knowing it. That is deception, to be blind and not know it, and then to believe, to be convinced that you see, that you know. A deceived heart led him astray. How great that blindness is is seen by the universal repudiation of it. The most difficult thing is to get the natural man to believe that he is blind. Try any educated person today, try the modernist, try the scholar, try the religionist who is not born again, and your work will be of the hardest, if not the most hopeless to convince them that they do not know, that they never can know until they are born again. It is the most heartbreaking thing to try to get people to see. They think they do see, they cannot agree that they do not see. They simply get over the difficulty by saying: Oh, well, that is your interpretation of things, it is not my interpretation, it does not mean that I know less than you do. The very fact that blindness is repudiated by the natural man is the proof of its depth, of its strength, of its power. Its universal deception makes it necessary for a miracle to be wrought in order that they shall see. God’s attitude and Christ’s attitude to those of this world is that they have no eyes, they are born blind. Thirdly, bondage. Here again it will not be admitted, but there is bondage to the Devil. The fact of the bondage is manifested by a refusal to entertain any such suggestion, and therefore by refusing to take any course which would prove it. You and I have discovered how great that bondage is by seeking to escape it. We know because we have sought to escape. You never know how great the bondage is until you try to get out of it. The men of Israel did not know how great their bondage in Egypt was until they contemplated escape, and then they discovered that bondage was a greater thing than they ever imagined, and they would never have believed the tenacious grip it held. We should never have believed it until the prospect and promise of liberation came to us.

Then self-responsibility was the result; that is having to take responsibility for making your own way. After the ruin man had to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. He had to make his own way, to take responsibility to live, and it was a terrific thing. Up to that point God had taken responsibility, provided everything. Life was a very simple thing. There was no anxious thought about wherewithal of any kind. But immediately afterwards he had to take responsibility for his own existence on the earth, and work by the sweat of his brow to keep body and soul together. These are the consequences of pride of heart, leading to ruin.

Of course at that point Christ comes in, the last Adam, with redemption and recovery. How? If pride of heart was the explanation of ruin, humility of heart is basic to revelation and recovery. This is a law of the house of God in which He will dwell. “I am meek and lowly in heart.”

I would like to introduce here a whole set of Scriptures. If pride of heart is independence then humility of heart is dependence, and when Christ is introduced as representing God’s temple, God’s dwelling place, then a law of God’s house, if it is to be built and maintained and not come to ruin, is the law of humility, and that is seen in the case of Christ from His birth. Everything about His birth speaks of meekness, lowliness, humility. His home and upbringing, His entering upon His ministry, His daily life, His manner, speak of humility. There is nothing self-important here, no pride of heart: “Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is... lowly, and riding upon an ass....” That is how He came. What a life of utter dependence upon the Father He lived.

If ruin came by pride, and pride showed itself in possession, or possessiveness, then humility will be self-emptying, and self-emptiness. If pride of heart showed itself in self-centredness then humility is God-centredness. This is Christ, the house of God. If the issues of pride of heart were death, then humility is life. If pride of heart worked out in darkness then humility is light. Do you want to know? “The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.” Meekness is essential to spiritual knowledge. If pride of heart led to bondage, then humility is liberty. If pride of heart meant that God refused to take responsibility for that man, and left him to take responsibility for himself, humility means that God assumes the responsibility again to look after those who humbly trust Him.

We will come back to this later but we have gone thus far in order to indicate what the Lord is trying to get us to see. God’s temple, God’s dwelling place governs history from the eternal counsels of God. Christ sets forth what that is, and in Him we see the laws which govern the habitation of God, and these laws are the opposite of those which obtained and governed in the leading to the ruin of the house of God. The first law is meekness, humility and all that that means.

There is a power about this divine humility which is capable of bringing the pride of Satan to the dust and destroying all the works of the Devil. “He was crucified through weakness.” But what that crucifixion wrought in the universe! “He humbled himself.” But to what effect! Satan has surely to rue the day that he participated in the humiliation of the Son of God. There is something mighty about humility and something terrible about pride.

[Shammu]

Chapter 2 - Humility

"Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you" 2 Cor. 10:1.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." Gal. 5:22-23.

"With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love" Eph. 4:2.

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls ... Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth ... Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass." Matt. 11:29, 5:5, 21:5.

That which we have been considering, and with which we are to be occupied for a little while longer is this House of God, which is perfectly represented by the Lord Jesus while here on the earth. The house of God is governed by certain laws, and if we are coming into that relationship with Christ which the Word speaks of, resulting in our being builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit, and being a temple of God, living stones built up a spiritual house, then we also have got to be governed by the same laws as governed the life of the Lord Jesus, the same principles have got to hold good in our case if God is going to find in us His dwelling place. These laws are the opposite of those features of ruin, of which we have already spoken. If pride was the root of the ruin, then humility will be basic to recovery and to the house of God, and if pride is seen in independence, then humility will be seen in dependence.

Let us stay with that for a moment. We have seen that in the case of the Lord Jesus He chose of His own free will to live here on this earth a life of dependence upon the Father, making it perfectly clear that the Son can do nothing out from Himself, but He does whatsoever He sees the Father doing. He does not speak or work out from Himself, but His life is a life of voluntary dependence upon the Father all the way through. That was a mark of His true humility, and that made it possible for the Father to dwell in Him in this particular sense, that He was setting forth for man what a dwelling place of God really is. It is that in which there is no pride expressing itself in independence, but perfect humility on the basis of dependence.

It seems to be clear enough in the case of the Lord Jesus to make it unnecessary for us to dwell upon Him in that connection, but if we advance to see the truth, the revelation of the House of God, the church, brought in especially through the apostle Paul, we are able to see how closely and strictly God kept to this principle. I wonder if it has ever struck you what a difference there was between the apostle Paul and the apostle John in relation to their particular and peculiar ministries. Paul as a man is very much in view. Of course, there is a sense in which it is quite wrong for a man to be in view, for the man to be obtruding himself upon the consciousness of others, but in the case of Paul the wrong element is strangely absent. The man is kept very much in view, and yet you never feel anything in the nature of assertiveness, the bringing of himself as himself to bear upon you; you never feel irritated by his presence, and yet he is very much in view. He speaks about himself. No apostle uses the personal pronoun more than Paul, or as much, and he seems to keep himself in view. Go through his life and see how much autobiography there is. Not only so, but the Holy Spirit seems to keep Paul in view.

That is because of two things, as I understand it. One is the church, as God’s object, is brought into view particularly through Paul, and the other is the need of the cross to be seen working, over against the man, to show the nature and elements of the church. The church as God’s object is brought into view particularly through Paul. Now it is necessary for the Lord to get an object lesson of what the church is to really administer in a life where the elements and the nature of the church are. It is not enough for a man to develop a teaching about something; it is not enough for Paul to be given a revelation of the church and then to talk about his revelation. Paul must be taken hold of in relation to his revelation, and made an object lesson of that revelation and he must, therefore, be made an object lesson concerning the church. The Holy Spirit brings the man, who is the message, right up in front of you and keeps him there, and then begins to deal with that man to show you what the church is and what the church is in that man. So that what you find in Paul is the outworking of the principles of the church.

Take the point of humility. Look at Paul according to nature, look at Saul of Tarsus. You have anything but a man marked by humility, you have a man vindicating himself, assertive, aggressive, domineering, forceful, coming out into the light, displaying himself before the world. All that is in Paul by nature, and the Holy Spirit keeps him in view and allows him, perhaps causes him, to keep himself in a certain sense in view. Then what do you see? It is as though the Lord were taking up the cross and hammering Paul, hammering at all that pride, breaking it and bringing out in this man’s life a beautiful humility. Saul of Tarsus is not dependent, he is not suppliant. He is a man of independence, very great independence of judgement, of purpose, of manner, of spirit, of mind, of will, of way. All that is in Paul by nature. From time to time you get a little touch of it even when he is Paul the apostle, but you notice one thing. Here is a man who naturally is so independent, so proudly independent, who has been smitten, and smitten, and smitten by the Lord, and he is steadily moving to a place of utter dependence, until you meet Paul in the place where he confesses his utter dependence upon the Lord for his own physical life, for all that he knows. How the wisest men have erred in putting it down to the marvellous intellect of Paul! Paul would say, “I received it not of men.” This did not come through the flesh. This is not the result of learning, but received by revelation of Jesus Christ. “...It pleased God... to reveal his Son in me...” Paul will attribute everything to the Lord, and will say that he is utterly dependent upon the Lord for all strength, and all energy, and all life, and all knowledge, all wisdom, all understanding, everything. That keeps a man very humble. The Lord keeps that man at short accounts with Himself. The man does not know what he is going to do, he does not know in himself, he has to get direction from the Lord for each step. He keeps himself so free unto the Lord, that the Lord is able to change the course of things at a moment. He is dependent upon the Lord for his guidance every day. If you met him any day and asked him where he is going he would say, I do not know, I am waiting for the Lord. The Lord can indwell and can establish a man like that.

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[Shammu]

In the man through whom the first full revelation of the church came there had to be wrought the principle of the church. The church is a thing for the dispensation, and the Lord must point to that man and say, This is the church, this is what God’s dwelling place is, something without any pride in it, and the absence of pride is marked by an utter dependence upon the Lord. What is one of the great features of dependence upon the Lord? It is prayerfulness. A prayerless life is a life which has not recognised its dependence upon the Lord. A life of prayer is a life which has come to see that it cannot go on far without the Lord. That is why I believe the Lord has ordained prayer as His way of working and meeting the need. He has said, in effect, You have to live by Me. If you can go on without Me all right, go on; but for My purpose you have to live by Me. Prayer is our way of showing that we are dependent upon the Lord, and it is the way by which, therefore, the Lord comes in and manifests Himself.

If you look again at Paul’s revelation of the church, the Body of Christ, you will see how he lays down the principle of dependence, interdependence, mutual dependence, and how he strikes strong blows against anything in the nature of independence, separateness. The Body is one, and no member in the Body can say to another, I have no need of you. Every member must say, I am dependent upon you. The hand cannot take the place of the foot. The whole body is constituted to demonstrate the law of dependence. That is humility. The opposite of that is striking out on your own, being a freelance and snapping your fingers at anybody and everybody else, and doing without them. That is pride, and it is deception.

Pride is shown in possession or possessiveness; that is, taking hold of things to govern them ourselves, to be in possession of them. It is the work in Adam, and it is in all of us. It is shown in the desire to have in our own possession, to have in our own power, to have under our own hand, under our own influence, and it is a terrible thing. It is in us all by nature more or less, and the ruin of the church has come along this line of men wanting to take charge, men wanting to possess, men wanting to bring their influence to bear upon things, so that the thing comes into their hold. It is the ruin of the church. It was the ruin of the race. It was the ruin of Satan.

There is nothing like that about the Lord Jesus. His was a letting go to the Lord, a letting go to the Father all the time. Listen to some of the sublime things that He said: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me...”. There is no fret about that, no strain, no hurried, feverish, excitable rushing about to get people, to get members, to build up something, to get people to join, to make a success of things: “All that the Father giveth me shall come...”. It was a letting go to the Father. It is faith. That is not mere passivity, but faith in the Father. It is our inborn desire to have a sphere of power, of influence, of domination, of government, that causes us to try to get something, to get hold of something, to possess something, to see something, to have something, to see the work grow, to see a success. We are really out all the time in some way or other to bring people to our end, under our influence, to dominate them. There was nothing of that about the Lord Jesus.

It is a mark of the house of God that there is no strain to possess for the sake of possession, to have power, to have mastery, to hold something. That is mine! Do not touch this—it is mine! The Lord Jesus had nothing in Himself, and wanted nothing for Himself, but He had everything in the Father. His attitude was, Father, if You want Me to have that You will give it to me. I am not going to strive, and worry, and manipulate, and work, and plan, and scheme, and be all the time anxious to have it. If You want Me to have that I trust You to give it to Me, and what You do not want Me to have I do not want! That is the attitude of Christ, and that is how the church was built, how the Lord builds His church. We must be very careful that this natural possessiveness does not come up in the things of the Lord. It works up unconsciously, even in our desire for spiritual blessing. It is to possess something in order that, having it, we may have greater influence, we may be something more, that we may become a dominating factor, that we may be recognised. Even a desire for holiness may have a subtle snare in it, that if we are holy it will be noted that we are holy, said that we are holy.

We cannot track this thing down, and we do not always want to be tracking this thing down and being introspective in this way, but we can take it that a hallmark of humility is self-emptying.

Take Paul. He was dependent, and self-emptied. There is a wonderful glory about emptiness when the Lord does it. It is not always a glorious feeling to feel empty, but it is marvellous how the Lord gets glory through emptying us, and keeping us emptied, until He wants us full. One of the things that the apostle said to the Corinthians in a kind of irony was: “Ye are full... ye have reigned as kings without us.” That was no compliment. They are not to be admired for that. It was pride. “We are accounted as the offscouring of all things.” “Ye are full... ye have reigned as kings without us.” Yes, but after all what was it the Lord said to the church at Laodicea? “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”

There is an emptiness which brings much glory to God, and humility is being poor in spirit. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” God dwells with such as are of a broken and contrite spirit. God-centredness is the opposite of self-centredness, that all our wellsprings, all our resources, our everything is in the Lord, and all our interests are in the Lord. As for self-exaltation, the Lord made Himself of no reputation, He humbled Himself.

To return to the apostle Paul again. How he abased himself, got right down even before those who owed everything to him and yet were treating him so scurrilously. He had gone right down before them, humbled himself, abased himself, and went through, and won them by that means.

You see what the House of God is, this temple of God. If Paul brings in the great revelation of the temple, the church, the House of God, then he must be made an object lesson of its principles, and the first great principle of Christ wrought in Paul, and therefore to be reproduced in the House of God, is humility in all its aspects, dependence, emptiness, God-centredness.

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[Shammu]

What are the results? If pride, with these various aspects, led to death, then humility after this kind, that which Paul calls “the meekness of Christ”, leads to life. Life by humility, life by meekness, death by pride. “God beholdeth the proud afar off”, “Pride is an abomination unto the Lord”. If pride puts us away back there, there is not much hope of life. When pride is out of the way God draws near, and there is life. We have more to say about life later.

If, again, the result of pride in ruin was darkness, then humility, meekness, is the way of light. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.” You will learn by that spirit. It is enlightening. We said that the great law which governed everything was that of heart fellowship with the Lord, and we saw that that heart fellowship was broken by pride in the heart, the heart lifted up in pride. Now, says the apostle, “the eyes of your heart being enlightened”. This is heart fellowship with the Lord, bringing about enlightenment, leading to enlightenment, or making possible enlightenment.

Now a closing word of special emphasis upon the greater significance of pride and humility. It might be thought that we were just talking about the common virtues of the Christian life, and the common evils of human nature, but they are far bigger than that. We must remember that we are dealing here with Christ and Antichrist. We are getting back before man was created and seeing in the eternal counsels of God Christ as God’s chosen, God elect, Who was to bring God into dwelling in man. God was coming to dwell in man through His Son as in His Son. The whole thought and intention of the incarnation is: “God with us”, “God manifest in the flesh”, and dwelling in man. That is bound up with Christ, and that was in the eternal counsels of God. If God were going to dwell in man, and at some dateless point pride was found in the heart of Lucifer, and he reached out to occupy the place which God had appointed for Christ, that he should dwell in man as God, you have two lines at once starting off: the line of God indwelling man; and the whole course of demon possession, Satan seeking to gain entrance into human life and make it his tabernacle, his dwelling. Those are two courses of history. We are familiar with them. We know they are true. If you do not believe in demon possession, there are some places we could send you to where you would have your unbelief very quickly dispensed, but there is the history. We are not going to dwell upon it, but it is a fact. It is Christ and Antichrist.

What is Antichrist? In the full development of Antichrist it is Satan incarnate as God dwelling in man, being worshipped (mark you) as God in man. What is it that moves toward that? It is this evil thing of which we have been speaking: pride. What is pride? Pride is the elevation of man. So that Antichrist is the elevation of man to the place of God. All these things that we have said about pride, independence, relate to that. Independence is man assuming personal rights, prerogatives, acknowledging no greater authority than himself, bowing to no one, a law unto himself, drawing things to himself in possessiveness, having them under his control, in his own hand, all things centred in himself and working toward self-exaltation. Pride in its simplest forms has all those elements, and it has only to grow. That is the soul of man by nature. That soul has only to exert itself or assert itself and you get a development of Antichrist, or the spirit of Antichrist.

I wonder if you know of any outstanding example, (though it is true in a smaller measure of all of us), where a man asserts his soul force tremendously to possess, to influence, to dominate, to have his way, to get his thoughts realised and accepted, his ideas adopted. It is not long before you find extra elements associating themselves with that man, something that is more than the man himself, egging him on, getting behind him and energising him until, while that man in himself to begin with was really not much, amongst men he would not have been regarded as a great man in himself, he has become a world figure and mysterious forces are at work, so that his words become slogans; people take them up and utter them. What are those forces? They are the satanic forces of Antichrist, and in measure there is a worshipping of him. The world will divide itself over several such men, and then the lesser will fall away until in all probability there will only be two; then there will come a clash, and the domination of one, Antichrist.

Where does it originate? In the soul force of man projecting itself, which gives Satan just what he wants to ally psychic forces, to bring him up to Antichrist. Antichrist is the full development, with Satan indwelling, the devil incarnate, apparently in dominion. Then Christ comes, and the clash between the two. What is it that marks the Christ? Is it this assertiveness, this personal drive? No. Christ is the Lamb, as it had been newly slain, and it is the Lamb Who shall overcome. What is a lamb? A lamb is dependent, in itself nothing.

The Lord will deal with us in this way. If the Lord is going to constitute us His temple, if we are really going to be a dwelling place of God; that is, not to be brought to ruin, but to be established, to become a part of that tabernacle of God coming down from God out of heaven, God dwelling with man, what will the Lord do with us? He will destroy our independence, empty us of our self-sufficiency, bring us to the place where we have nothing in ourselves and our all in Himself. That is where His Son was and that is why Christ triumphed. God allied Himself with that One, and whereas man thought that they were dealing with a poor, weak human, they came up against Almighty God. That was the issue.

That is what the enemy has to reckon with. It may look like a poor fragment, a poor remnant of humanity, weak, persecuted, helpless, but he will find God there. That is why we said there is something mighty about humility, dependence, emptiness, when its everything is in the Lord. It is then that the forces of evil have God to reckon with, not with us. How shall we overcome? By standing by and fighting? We said just now that what is true of these outstanding examples is true in a smaller measure of us all. I wonder how many of you have fought to have your own way, believing that it was the Lord’s way. You may have thought that a certain course would be the Lord’s way, and you fought with all the heat of your being, with all the tenacity of your strength of will, and some heat of flesh. I ask you, do you wish you had never fought? Do you today wish that you had never entered into that fight like that? You can answer your own heart. I know that to this day I have regretted that ever I asserted my will, to have things as I thought they ought to be. What happened? I did not win. I may have got what I was after, but I lost; and it may be that I got something that I would rather be without today. It may be place, or some particular position, and we thought it would be all good, all to the glory of God, and so we set ourselves to have it. It would have been better to let go everything to the Lord, and have taken this position, Now Lord, if You want me to have that, or be in that, I stand in absolute faith in You that You are able to do it, and I need not worry or fear. The Lord is quite capable of seeing to it.

You see what the tabernacle of God is. It is God’s dwelling place. It is where the Lord is everything, and in order for the Lord to be everything we must be nothing. Humility, meekness must be a big mark of such a House of God.

There are other things, but that is where we begin. May the Lord teach us His own lesson of humility.

[Shammu]

Chapter 3 - Power in Witness

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Phil. 2:5-11

"Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Eph. 1:20-23.

In our present meditation we are led to the question of power in witness. It is perhaps the major question for the church. It does not matter very much what the church may have, if it is without power it is without effect, and for the fulfilment of its purpose, the justification of its existence, it must be an expression, an instrument of the power of God in Christ as exalted.

When we speak of the church, let us not get far away ideas. We must remember that the church functions in representation, though that representation may only be in two. Peter and John, for instance, as in Acts 4, were not just men by themselves, they were functioning in relation to the church, and the church was in expression by them at that time. You notice that the Holy Spirit is very true to that principle in the whole of that story. Being led they went to their own company, and told them all that the rulers had said, and the company, when they heard these things, took up the whole matter in prayer before the Lord. They did the praying. It does not say that Peter and John did it, but when the company heard they prayed and took up the Psalm and brought it to the Lord in relation to the present situation. So that it was the church operating. The whole setting of things there is that of the church, and it was functioning by representation in just two. Two is the divine meaning for representation, and the whole question is that of the church functioning in power, even though it may only be by two or three, or by a small company. It, after all, is the church’s testimony which is to be represented there, and that is to be an expression of divine power.

The Lord would have us marked by spiritual power. Not by mighty words, but by mighty deeds. These are the tokens of God’s Kingdom, and, of course, power always has been a very living matter, question, interest for the people of God, and it is a matter about which the Lord would exercise the hearts of His people again in these days. We believe He is doing that in many parts; we may say, perhaps, all over the world the Lord’s honest people are exercised on the matter of spiritual power. To put it another way, they are concerned about the lack of power, the spiritual weakness, the ineffectiveness, and they are crying for a new visitation of the Holy Spirit, with the desire that there should be a fresh manifestation of divine power. Now the Lord has some light to shed upon this matter of power, for He does not just give power willy-nilly, or as something in itself, and He does not give the Holy Spirit on any basis at all as the Spirit of power, but He always has a background and a foundation for the exercise of power, and we need to know, and the rest of the Lord’s people need to know, what the Lord’s basis of power really is.

Taking such a chapter as Acts 4 as an illustration, you will notice that while power is in evidence, and power is the feature of the church in those days, that power was related to the Name of Jesus. Six times in that chapter reference is made to the Name of Jesus. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” It was a question of the Name, that by what authority and in what name they had done this thing. Peter’s answer was: “Be it known unto you all... that by the name of Jesus Christ... doth this man stand here before you whole.” It was a question of the Name which was also the question of the authority that produced this, the superior title, the superior authority, the superior Name by which this power was being manifested. So that power was bound up with the Name of Jesus.

When we turn to the letter to the Philippians, and to the passage in Ephesians, we are given an insight into the moral and spiritual basis of the Name, and therefore of power in the church, and we are given a very wide, a very vast range of insight. We are told, first of all, that Jesus of Nazareth before times eternal subsisted in the very form of God. You have to go back there for your first insight into the question of power, as to Who Jesus of Nazareth is from eternity. He subsisted in the form of God; that is, all the essential attributes of Godhead, of deity, were His. John makes the thing utter, as we know: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” There is nothing to add to that. Paul puts it this way: “Who subsisted in the form of God”. So that Jesus of Nazareth from eternity is Very God, and nothing which has happened in the course of the cycle of history, the history of His person, has altered that.

The next phase makes no difference to that basic and eternal fact. When we see Him coming out from His eternal place as God, and being found in fashion as a man, taking the form of a servant, emptying Himself, that makes no difference to the original, basic fact. Let us be perfectly clear about this. I do not want to enter upon any theological arguments, but we must be perfectly clear about this, that Jesus of Nazareth is still from eternity God in all the essential attributes of deity, of Godhead, and He has not emptied Himself of those attributes, He has not emptied Himself of Godhead. When the Word says that He emptied Himself, that clearly relates to form and not to person. He existed, or subsisted, in the form of God; now He is in the form of man, and that is all that is meant by emptying Himself; and it is a big enough emptying for anybody to consider. You cannot contemplate any greater emptying than that. He Who had subsisted in God-form, now is in man-form, but He is still God in man-form.

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[Shammu]

The humility did not begin when He took man-form. The humility began before that: “...who, subsisting in the form of God, counted it not something to be grasped to be on equality with God...”. There was no pride about His position. Of course, this is said quite obviously as over against Satan in the first instance, who grasped at equality with God, and that was his pride. There was no personal, self-glorifying in the position of the Lord Jesus, no self-exaltation, no grasping at something for Himself. That is where the humility of God is found. God is no vaunting, proud, self-glorifying Being.

What we are seeking to make clear is this, that humility is not just a feature of man, it is a feature of God; it is a divine thing, a thing which belongs to God. Humiliation and humility are two different things. The humiliation of the Lord Jesus is one thing; His humility is another thing. His humility is eternal, it comes out of eternity, and it belongs to His very Godhead.

Now you notice that He, back there in eternity, was marked by this humility that counted it not something to be grasped at to be on equality with God; but then He emptied Himself, and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself. You notice the difference. There was humility in Godhead, but that humility has come into manhood, and is going ever deeper. There is a humility which belongs to heaven, but when you bring that humility out of heaven here into a condition such as this world is in, and humble yourself to this state, that is getting very low, that is going down very deep. He humbled Himself when found in fashion as a man. As God He emptied Himself, as Man He humbled Himself. What a depth! Satan and Adam sought to exalt themselves to be equal with God. Here is One Who did not grasp at this equality with God, but emptied Himself.

Then, (not as our translation says, “...he... became obedient...”) “...becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross”, we see that His whole life was a life of continuous emptying unto the obedience of the cross. His whole life here was a life with the cross in view, which required continuous obedience unto death. Death as it were was going on all the time, and He knew it. It was before Him, and He was continually to be obedient unto it. How often temptations came to Him, to turn Him aside from that way of death. A disciple would say to Him: “Far be it from thee”. It is a temptation not to be obedient unto death. In the wilderness the devil three times tempted Him along the line which was other than a line of obedience unto death, to reach His end by another course. He was becoming obedient all the time up to the final act of obedience unto death, and that meant constant humbling of Himself as a Man, when He might have been exalted, when they would have exalted Him, when they would have made something of Him, when He could have made something of Himself. Satan said, “Cast thyself down...”; if You do You will be preserved, and You will come down among this people and everyone will come to You and say, This is God! But He was obedient unto death, by the way of humbling, obedience, emptying.

“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.” He subsisted in God-form, He took the form of man; now in a strange way, which is always the mystery of God and of the person of Christ, which you and I will never understand in this life, there has come about a union between God and man in Christ, so that here in the exaltation it is not the exaltation of God to glory, it is the exaltation of Christ as Man, Son of Man: Man with God allied, God joined, God and Man together. So that Jesus still bears the Name, but it is Jehovah-Jesus, it is God and Man united, Jesus of Nazareth with God’s Name resting upon Him, Jehovah. It is a difficult thing to explain, and a very dangerous realm. It is necessary to protect that when you talk about God and Man joined in one, but in His case it is true. It only becomes true in any measure in our case by reason of our union with Christ; it never becomes true of us in ourselves. We shall never have the attributes of Godhead and deity, but in Christ God allies Himself with man, and, as we have already said, to meet the man in Christ who is living on the basis of Christ exalted is to meet God. To meet the church, though it be in representation in two or three, when that representation is on the basis of Christ’s exaltation, is to have to reckon with God. That is shown in Acts 4: “...Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. ...And now, Lord, behold their threatenings...”. It is the ground of appeal on the part of a little company. What happens? The Lord comes in and shows that He is allied with this; the place where they prayed was shaken. God comes in on that ground of the exaltation of His Son, and on the basis of that there is power.

The point, of course, is just this, that power in the church—and for our present purpose that is power in the church as represented in two or three or more—is a matter of our standing upon the spiritual and moral ground of Christ’s exaltation. What is that? Humility. What is humility? Utter emptiness of self. There is a tremendous power about humility when it is of this kind, when it is the humility of Christ. Christ is exalted by reason of His humility. There are various reasons given in the Word for the exaltation of Christ. In chapter 5 of the book of Revelation He receives glory and honour on the ground, or in virtue of, His redemption and His Blood. In the letter to the Hebrews it is because of the suffering of death, and having tasted death for every man, that He is crowned with glory and honour. In John 17 He says that He is glorified because He has glorified the Father on the earth. But in Philippians, while all that is involved, included, it is the Father Himself coming in and glorifying Him, exalting Him, honouring Him, on the ground of His humility. He humbled Himself, He emptied Himself. “Wherefore (on that ground) God hath highly exalted him...”. It is a peculiar spiritual and moral basis of exaltation. The apostle takes hold of that and applies it to the situation at Philippi, and he says: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”.

What is power? How shall we know power? Power is bound up with the Name of Jesus. What is the Name of Jesus, the Name which is above every name, above every name in this age and that which is to come? It is that in which you find God and Man united. God was so with Him, that when you met the One you met the Other, when you touched the Man you touched God, when you came up against the Man you came up against God, when you dealt with the Man you dealt with God. That is what is meant by the Name of Jesus. What is the basis? He humbled Himself. It is humility. We sought to define humility in our last meditation. Humility is selflessness in every sense, and in the fullest sense.

cont'd next post