Books by T. Austin-Sparks

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(c) A Temple

Again, union with Christ is a temple. Perhaps you might think that that has been covered when we say that God is present and God is available. These are not watertight compartment ideas of union with Christ. They are all parts of a whole, the house of God. The temple simply brings out one particular idea. You see, it is not only where God is. God is in His holy temple, but that temple idea is that it is there that God's rights are recognized and where God gets His rights, because that is just the meaning of worship. The temple is the place of worship, and worship is just giving God His rights. God's rights are absolute, and in His temple God gets everything - all is unto God. In the day when the temple was not what God meant it to be, as a figure very much otherwise, indeed - Isaiah wrote, "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple" (Isaiah 6:1). It is the place where there is no room for anyone else. You know the story of Uzziah - how he entered the temple to burn incense, unlawfully, without right he forced his way in and touched the altar, and he was smitten with leprosy and died in a lazar-house. In other words, he got into God's place. And then, when Uzziah was out of the way, Isaiah saw the Lord filling the temple. That is the true idea of the temple, and there it is "Holy, holy, holy," as we shall see. The thought behind the temple, then, is - Here, amongst these people here, in the two or the three or in the greater companies locally found, God is getting everything. God has a full, free, unhindered, unreserved way; His rights of complete capitulation, surrender, yieldedness, obedience, are ceded to Him. And it is not just in lip, it is in life. That is the temple, a living temple, a spiritual house. God's rights are ceded to Him.

(d) A Stewardship: (e) An Order

And then, finally, we come to union with Christ as a stewardship and an order. The word translated "stewardship," strangely enough, is from the same root as the Greek word for "house": it means the management of a house or household, and gives us our word "economy." It is the word that is elsewhere translated "dispensation" - what we call an economy, or administration; that is, an order of things - the order which exists in a certain place at a certain time. It has two aspects: one is that it represents and expresses this Divine, heavenly, order; the other, that it is an administrative place, a place of administration, or ministry. That is the double idea of stewardship.

I was saying a little while back that it is foolish to think of a heavenly order being found without some company to express it. There must be that here and there in the earth which EXPRESSES this order, in which this order is seen. Now, I am not contradicting myself in saying again that you must introduce the New Testament system. It just depends on how it comes in, but it must be there. It must be a heavenly order expressed. But it is possible to have the order without the doctrine, and it is better so than to have the doctrine without the order. We have found that the very thing is there, in existence, and people do not know anything about it. There it is: it exists - a wonderful spiritual order. They have sensed that this is how the Lord would have things done. When it has been pointed out to them that there is a whole revelation from God on that very matter, they had never realized it, but there it is. They have come under the regime of the Holy Spirit, and found that this is how the Lord does things, this is what the Lord would have; it is spontaneous.

So we do not begin by saying, "Now, to have an expression of the heavenly order, you must first bring a company of people together, and then you must have the Lord's Table and baptism, and you must have brethren in authority and corporate ministry - everything must be corporate and in fellowship." Do not have that kind of mentality. It is deadly; it can be as earthly as anything else. You will find, if the Holy Spirit really gets things into His hands, that you will begin to be exercised about things. We have seen that happening so wonderfully. Where Christ is preached, with a seeking of complete and utter surrender and abandonment to Him and the establishment of His lordship and headship; when all those things are brought into view and have been accepted, it is not long before people say, "I am beginning to be exercised about so-and-so; you have never said anything about this, but it has been coming up with me lately."

That is the way, and the only way, that is fruitful and valuable. The Holy Spirit precipitates things when He gets His place. He brings the house, He brings the stewardship, the dispensation, the economy, the heavenly order, and when it comes up like that, it is a very blessed thing, and you say, "This is not some system of teaching I have taken on; it is something the Lord has shown me." That is the way, and the only living way. If you walk in the Spirit, if you really walk in the Spirit, you will find that, as you go on, all sorts of adjustments will be made because the Lord indicates them to you; all sorts of things will be put away or be brought in, because the Lord is speaking. He is a Son over God's house, and as such He is bringing in this heavenly economy, this heavenly order; not to have ordinances, but testimonies - those things which embody spiritual and heavenly principles.

Well, that is familiar ground to many, but to all who read these lines it may not be equally so, and it may be the Lord would have that word said. Yes, union with Christ as a stewardship: there is an arrangement that the Holy Spirit will make in the house of God, that Christ as the Son over God's house will bring into being; a heavenly arrangement. It means a new mentality - "stewards of the mysteries of God" said Paul (1 Cor. 4:1) - a new mentality, a new conception of things; or, as Peter said, "According as each hath received a gift, ministering it among yourselves, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God" (1 Peter 4:10). In "housekeepers of the manifold grace of God." If you think that is straining the sense, look at the context. "Using hospitality one to another" - that immediately precedes it. "According as each hath received a gift, ministering it among yourselves, as good 'housekeepers' of the manifold grace of God."

It means a new mentality bringing heavenly conceptions; heavenly-mindedness. It says that Adam gave names to everything - I suppose the animals and the flowers. (I am quite sure he did not give Latin names: none of that in Paradise, please!) He gave names to everything. My point is this. We have to find a heavenly name for everything, find out what the Lord calls things. The Lord calls a thing by a certain name. We go round it and call it by other names, but the Lord says, No, that is that, it is this; you are calling it by another name. We have to call things by their right names, give the right heavenly name to things. The Lord calls a certain virtue meekness; we call it weakness. Give the right heavenly names to things and you will have plenty to do - it is a very big world.

The other aspect is administration or ministry: the house as a stewardship, a ministry, a place of ministry. That does not mean, of course, setting up a professional ministry or a particular company called ministers. It is the household; that is the place of ministry. Everybody in this household ought to have a stewardship; everyone ought to be a steward of the manifold grace of God. In some way or other you can be a steward, because you are CALLED to be a steward, to have something of the Lord to give. That is why the Lord is dealing with you as He is. He is trying to make you a steward in His house, to make it possible for you to have something to give to someone else, something of Himself that you have received, that you have come to possess that you can pass on to someone else.

Well, all this is compassed by the word for house, and its related forms, all referring to the house of God. This house is a wonderful thing. Do ask the Lord to make more clear to you what it involves, and let us ask the Lord very much that there may be literal expressions of His heavenly house found more and more widely on this earth.

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Chapter 7 - Functional Union

5. Functional Union

"For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office: so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another" (Rom. 12:4,5).

"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; it is not therefore not of the body. And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; it is not therefore not of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members each one of them in the body, even as it pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now they are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee: or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary: and those parts of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness; whereas our comely parts have no need: but God tempered the body together, giving more abundant honour to that part which lacked, that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffereth all the members suffer with it; or one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof'" (1 Cor. 12:12-27).

"...His body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all" (Ephesians 1:23).

"That he... might reconcile them both in one body unto God" (Ephesians 2:15,16).

"...For the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12).

"Christ... from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth... maketh... increase" (Ephesians 4:15,16).

"He is the head of the body, the church" (Col. 1:18).

"For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body" (Ephesians 5:23).

"We are members of his body" (Ephesians 5:30).

We continue with our consideration of this great and many-sided revelation of union with Christ. We come now to the fifth aspect of union with Christ, which we are calling Functional Union: that is, as a body, with head and members.

Inclusive Function: Expressing the Personality - Christ

I am going to begin with the inclusive function of the Body of Christ. That function is the expressing of the personality of the Body, which is Christ. The Body of Christ, the Church as the Body of Christ, does not exist for self-expression. It does not exist for any other purpose at all than that of expressing the inward personality, the personality dwelling within the Body, that is, Christ. We never rightly speak of a corpse as a man. We can speak of it as the body of a man, but never as a man. The man is not there. His body may be there. We may, on the other hand, speak of a living body as a man, but we know quite well that the body, even though it is animated, is not the man, or is at most only a small part of him. The body is only the vehicle or vessel for the expression and activity of the man. The real man is what is inside the body.

So it is with the Body of Christ. We discriminate between Himself and His Body and yet we identify them: that is, we identify Him with His Body, and in a sense we identify His Body with Him, and yet there remains that difference. It is important to keep this in mind. Christ is not merged into something called His Body and His own personality lost. He remains the personality of His Body. There may be the framework without the personality, just as there can be the personality without the Body; but - and this is the teaching concerning the Church as His Body - for all practical purposes the two are one. That is, Christ demands His Body, and the Body demands Him. The Body is dominated by Him in order that, according to one passage we have just read, it may be His completeness, "the fullness of him that filleth all in all."

So, then, the Body has as its function two main things. One is to LOCATE the person or the personality, to bring Christ where the Body is, so that, where the Body is, there Christ should be. He has decided and chosen so to bind Himself up with His Body, that that Body, the Church, should be the place where He is found; that, in the minimum of representation - two members - it should bring Him into any place, that by it He should be able to come into any location or situation. One purpose of the Body, then, is to locate Christ.

Secondly, its function is to express the personality, to be the means, the vessel, wherein and whereby He can express Himself, make Himself known - bring people to see the Lord, to know the Lord, to understand the Lord. That is quite simple, but it is quite challenging.

There are several matters connected with this. Let us look in the first place at some things of relative or secondary account. It is possible to exaggerate the Body. That is sometimes done in the physical, human realm! Such an assertiveness, such an elaboration, such an aggrandizement, such an adornment and decoration of the external, the body, the fabric - to the hiding of the personality - so that the thing which impresses is the form, the pageantry, the external, not the presence of the Lord. It is that which touches the senses of men, so that their sight is taken up and their human natural senses of perception are occupied with the externals of the Church and often with the people themselves making an impression, and the Lord Himself is not to be found. It is possible to exaggerate the body; and apart from that - possibly exaggerated - observation, in many other ways we can bring the TECHNIQUE of the Church, of the Body of Christ, how it must be done and so on, so much into view, that all this is occupying the attention instead of the Lord Himself. The very teaching can obscure, if we are not very careful. Unless the Lord, the personality within, transcends all the means employed, then there is something wrong and we had better reconsider our means.

cont'd next post

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In the next place, it is possible to make the body ARTIFICIAL - now I am on very thin ice! - by titivating and decorating and painting. And what is it all about? It is an attempt to create personality where it is felt to be lacking. Forgive me if this makes any reader feel uncomfortable! But that is its underlying object - to make an impression, to carry weight, to give a sense of personality, or to make up some conscious lack. It is possible to be so occupied with this elaboration in connection with the Church in order to make an impression. How much of it, indeed, is already being done by the organized Church, with this object in view. All sorts of things are being put on, taken on, employed, all the paint and gilt and tinsel, all the artificial, in order to try to overcome this sense of a lack of impact, in order to make an impression because the impression is not there naturally; and it is quite possible to make the Body of Christ artificial, and its registration an artificial one, which will wear off unless you put more paint on and still more. You have to keep it going or it will fade out. It has to be done every morning!

On the other hand, it is possible to underestimate and be careless about the body, and that is equally evil. To be careless, slovenly, shabby in your bodily presence dishonors the personality, it takes something from the man, it degrades him. That could be applied in many ways. We make the observation as we go on that we must honor the Body of Christ. We are under obligation to keep the Body in respect for the sake of the One who is inside. While I speak, of course, of the fellowship of the Lord's people - the mutual honoring and respecting and helping and trying to elevate the standard of spiritual life; keeping things from becoming spiritually shabby and threadbare and down at heel, it does have - and forgive the somewhat mundane application - it does have an application to our personal presence, as to whether we, as Christians, in our personal appearance are really discrediting our Lord, by carelessness in habits or in dress, in behavior or manners. These things let the Lord down. As Christians we ought to be far above them. Now I am not suggesting to you that you at once go and begin to elaborate your personal adornments, but I do say that Christ deserves to be honored by the body and in the body, and it is possible to sin against Christ by carelessness with regard to the body. I would like to follow that more closely in our mutual care of one another - what the Word calls "provoking one another to good works," and "washing one another's feet"; that is, helping one another to keep from the earth, to keep out of touch with the low level of this world.

Functional Relatedness

We turn now to look at some things of primary account. The things that we have just been considering are perhaps only relatively important but there are also the greater things, the things of primary account for the full expression of the personality. I am using that word deliberately, for the time being, instead of Christ, because you will get the point better, I think, if I do so. For the full expression of the personality, which is Christ, there must be first of all a body, and a body, as we have read in 1 Cor. 12, is not so many individual scattered members. The body is not so many disconnected or unconnected members. The Body of Christ is the fellowship of believers, in the Holy Spirit, in a very definite, conscious relatedness, involving an inward registration and recognition that we are related to all the Lord's people, that locality in this matter is not the final criterion, that we are related to the Lord's people everywhere. That is, indeed, most definitely emphasized in the New Testament as an absolute necessity for the full expression of Christ. The full expression of Christ cannot come through unrelated individual believers. There may be some small, some partial expression of Christ in such, but fullness requires relatedness, and I challenge you on this matter. It is open to proof and it is constantly demonstrated. Your measure of Christ depends upon your relatedness. You will never get beyond a certain small degree of the expression of Christ in isolation, in separation, in independence, in apartness. The increase of your measure of the expression of Christ demands that you are in vital union with other members of His Body. I cannot be too emphatic about that, because I see everywhere the spiritual limitations and even the spiritual ravages resulting from the loss of that great reality. The Body must exist; there must be relatedness. And not just as an abstract thing; it must be real, it must be conscious, it must be deliberate, it must be a part of the very life. We know it - and if we do not know it, Satan knows it - but the Lord knows it.

Interrelatedness

And then there must be interrelatedness. Interrelatedness is essential to the full expression of this union, this fellowship, this relatedness; there must be a working together, there must be a mutual consideration with a view to helping one another, definitely helping one another. We are members not only of Christ - we have read that twice already - but "severally one of another." That is interrelatedness, and it is the very practical aspect of the Body of Christ that there is mutual support and mutual helpfulness, and that we are really laying ourselves out for the good of other members of the Body of Christ. That is the only way of the fullness of His expression. I said this is subject to test, to proof. You will find that your measure of Christ increases when you go to help another member of Christ; when you consider the need of other members of the Body and do what you can to meet it, Christ is coming out in fuller expression in your own life. If you are wrapped up in yourself, circling around yourself, occupied with yourself, nursing your own grievances and sufferings and trials and difficulties, and so becoming more and more isolated and imprisoned within yourself, your measure of Christ is diminishing all the time. It is that outward movement to His own that means spiritual increase to the one who makes it. It is necessary, it is essential, for the full expression of the personality. The New Testament is largely constructed upon that truth.

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Interdependence

And in the next place, interdependence. It is only another phase of the same thing. This brings in a general spirit of meekness. One member cannot say to another, "I have no need of you." It is not, perhaps, likely that you would say that in so many words. It may have been said in Corinth. It does seem as though something like that was going on there, and those actual words may have been used by some about others. "We can do without you!" "You do not count!" But it is not likely that spiritual people would use those actual phrases. Yet we act them. We behave like that too often. It is one of the lessons that we have got to learn. We really must consider this matter - that somehow or other the members which are least honorable are necessary. Somehow or other, those whom we would discount are necessary. It may be difficult sometimes to see how they are necessary. At any rate, it is to be an attitude. Can the Lord do without that one? Does not all the grace of God in salvation and in glorification come down to that least one? And am I not the least one, after all? Do we feel we are more important than others, and that we therefore merit the grace of God more than some others do? You see, the whole question of meekness arises. Interdependence means that somehow we need one another. That is true, and that is a necessary basis for the full expression of Christ - mutual recognition, mutual honoring; so that we take the attitude, "Now, this child of God, with all the faults and weaknesses, cannot be despised, cannot be cut off as of no account. Somewhere they fit into the whole in the realm of the Spirit, and the measure of Christ is increased." In that way we try to make the most of the least. There must be an acceptance of the fact of the Body.

Functional Constitution and Appointment

Then we must accept, definitely accept, the fact of the constitutional function of each member: that is, that each member, if really a member of Christ - and so possessing the indwelling Holy Spirit - each member, by the Holy Spirit, is in some way constituted with a function. Now, we must take that to ourselves. You may feel that you have not any place or function; you have always been trying to find out what it is, but you have never discovered it. How many people have come to me and said something like this - "Do you really believe that I represent some function in the Body of Christ? I wish you would tell me what it is!" I will answer that in another way. I am saying that we must accept the fact as stated in the Word of God, that, if this is not just some picture, some illustration, this figure of the body; if it is a reality, if the body is more than a metaphor, if it is a living reality and the Church is constituted on the very principles of the physical body of a man, as undoubtedly it is, if that is true, then these facts hold good, they are facts and we have got to accept the facts.

Now you can theorize about the functions of your body, if you like, but you will sooner or later have to accept the facts of it: they are facts. And so are these things that I am mentioning. We have to accept the fact that as members of Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we are constituted with a function in the Body of Christ and we have got to function. We have to recognize that we are there to function, not to be parasites or passengers, but to fulfil vital functions in the Body of Christ. If we accept the fact, and adjust ourselves to the fact, the Holy Spirit can do things; but if we become passive, if we sit down and decide that we do not count for anything and therefore what is the good of it - today we are eggs, tomorrow we are feather-dusters! - if we adopt that kind of attitude, the Holy Spirit will not do anything. The Holy Spirit says, Now then, on your feet and give Me an opportunity; take a positive attitude toward this reality, this truth, that you are a member of Christ's Body and that He has no paralyzed members.

That means, of course, more than the acceptance of the fact of our position in the Body and of our having a function in the Body. It means the acceptance of our RESPONSIBILITY, that we regard ourselves as responsible people in the Body of Christ, that we take responsibility for the expression of Christ - not personal importance, assertiveness, self-realization, but the expression of Christ. I am here as a member of a Body, the function of which is to express the indwelling personality, which is Christ. That is a serious responsibility, a solemn charge and obligation, as well as a privilege. We must take this up. Why am I joined to Christ? Why am I a member of Christ's Body? For such I am if I am in Christ. Why am I in that position? For no other and no lesser purpose than to be the vehicle of the expression of Christ, and if I am not doing that I am contradicting the very meaning of my union with Christ. We have to take responsibility over it. Every day we have to feel responsible about this matter of the expression of Christ. Of course, that will come down to many things. We slip up, we make mistakes; we speak a wrong thing, or a right thing in a wrong way; somehow or other we default; and at once we say, "That is not Christ, I must put that right; that has made a false impression, that has dishonored my Lord, let me clear that up." That is taking responsibility. There will be many small things like that - though nothing is truly small in the Body of Christ; and we could speak of many other things.

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Unconscious Functioning a Sign of Health

Now in a healthy body all this exists very largely unconsciously. Coming back to what I said, asking, What is my function? - your trouble will be that you will not know. In a healthy body, everything happens without your being conscious of it. You do not mentally reason out, work out and think and decide when you are going to take the next breath. You just do it. You never thought anything about it. That is going on in your body if you are healthy. It is all functioning so largely unconsciously. There is an unconscious sense in our physical system. It registers before we register. When we are pulled up by some symptom, some feeling, we begin to realize that something has gone wrong physically. But the system registered that before we were conscious of it. It is only bringing us to recognize what it has already recognized. That is going on all the time. In a healthy body there is no self-occupation with - What am I, who am I, where am I, what is my function? And when the Body of Christ is healthy, there is a spontaneous expression of Christ. It just happens, and it is most healthy when it is like that - indeed it is only healthy when it is like that. When people are self-conscious, when people are letting you know that they are trying to do something for the Lord - there is something wrong there. That is the Body occupied with itself instead of with the Lord. If we are really occupied with the Lord, a very great deal of this self-occupation disappears. Do not worry as to what your function is. You live in union with the Lord and you will function. You may not be able to see what it is that represents your value, but it will be there; you may not be able to see how it is that you are serving the purpose of the Body, but it will be served. Is it not true that we have known those who have felt themselves the poorest, the weakest, the most foolish, and we have found a fragrance of Christ, a beautiful fragrance of Christ, in that life, and they were all the time so troubled because they did not feel they were any good at all? We have met Christ. It is quite a healthy state to be in - far better than the opposite. There is an unconscious registration going on.

And when there is this unconscious registration, if anything does go wrong, what has been registered in the spirit within begins to make itself felt outwardly, and we become aware of the symptoms. We know there is something wrong. It has come up somewhere from the depths; something is not right. What I am saying is that there is a fact of things before there is an understanding of things. Before there is a mental apprehension, there is a fact, the fact of function before we understand. We said in an earlier chapter in this series that sometimes there can be a true living, beautiful expression of the real meaning of the Body of Christ without any of the teaching or the technique. That does not mean that teaching becomes unnecessary; but the right order is that the thing should be there first, and that you should come to something more by understanding what is there: whereas if you put it the other way and get all the teaching and technique and then try to get reality, it does not work - it is the wrong way round.

Christ's Headship

I am going to close with this, the key to all - and there is a great deal more than I have said: you know how much we could say about the Body of Christ and its function, it is just full of wonderful Divine meaning - but the key to all is Christ's Headship expressed in every member, in every part. There is a sense in which our heads, physically, naturally can be said to be present in every part of a healthy body. You can take the finest point and touch any part of the body to the farthest extremity - and how do you sense it? you know it in your head, you register it there. In a healthy body, the head, if it is free to function and is really functioning, is in touch with, and as it were represented in, every part. In the same way the Headship of Christ - His absolute Headship, Lordship, sovereignty, call it what you will - being expressed in any and every part of the Body and in every function, is the key to everything.

This means, of course, simply that every one of us, howsoever many we be, must be immediately and utterly under the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ if the foregoing is to be true. The expression of Christ demands the Lordship of Christ, the manifestation of Christ demands that He have His place as Head in every part.

Now do take that as the sum of everything; but do remember, do believe it - for you are going to prove it - you are going out or you are going on, you are going down or you are going up; we are all either going to make spiritual progress or we are going to retrogress. There is no standing still in this. We are on a slippery slope, and the only way is to keep going up or else we shall go down, and it is going to be like that all the way. Have no mistake about it. We are not just going to be stationary. If we do not go on we are going to lose ground. It is a fact which is borne out by the experience of every one of us, that we just CANNOT cease to be positive. It is a most perilous thing to cease to be positive in the Christian life. Lack of fervency of spirit uncovers us, it takes our defenses away, and we shall be steadily undone, steadily disintegrated, steadily made to lose out. This matter of the Body of Christ as a living organism, with relatedness and interrelatedness and interdependence, is no theory or technique. These are vital relationships connected with the increase of spiritual life, the enlargement of the expression of Christ, the justification of our very existence. But they are necessary things. You let your fellowship with the Lord's people suffer and you let your own spiritual life suffer. If you in any way become detached and isolated in spirit, in mind, in action, you cut the very vitals of your own spiritual life. It is like that. This functional union with Christ in His Body is essential. It is essential to Him, for the fulfillment of His purpose. It is essential to us in the fulfillment of our very life as Christians.

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Chapter 8 - Vital and Organic Union

6. Vital and Organic Union

"Every one... that doeth righteousness is begotten of him" (1 John 2:29).

"...Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (1 John 1:13).

"Of his own will he brought us forth [begat he us, A.V.] by the word of truth" (James 1:18).

"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).
And of course the whole of John 15 should be placed there. "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me..." and so on.

"As newborn babes, long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation" (1 Peter 2:2).

"...But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, even Christ" (Ephesians 4:15).

There will be no new profundities of truth delved into in what follows, and to many it will perhaps seem like coming back to the most elementary things, the very beginnings, of the Christian life, but I feel that it is very necessary for us to take nothing for granted. We who may know these things, and may have known them for a long time, will be the better for constant refresher courses in such matters, to help us to remember these basic truths and basic laws of our life and growth. There being such a large proportion of younger people among our readers, who are undoubtedly seeking the way of the quickest entrance into spiritual fullness, who are concerned to get on in the spiritual life just as quickly as possible, I think this word may prove helpful to them. At least it will be a re-emphasis upon things which it is so necessary always to keep in mind.

The Seed-Principle

Now the principle of being and growing is life. The means and method of being and growing is a seed, with life in it, in which the whole organism of its kind exists. That is, indeed, the principle upon which God has constructed the greater part of his animate creation. It is not a machine - it is an organism. It is not made to run and go by artificial means or external energies. Of course, it requires food from outside, but it must have life in order to feed. It is sustained by life in itself. The seed of every species has, within itself, all that characterizes the particular organism. The particular nature of that species, its shape, its size, its color, its form, its features, its capacities, are all there in the seed where the life is. Of course, that is the wonder of nature. It is an amazing thing: just a seed with its tiny germ of life in it, and then, when grown, developed and in full expression, coming true to type in all its features. It is a marvelous thing. That is God's method of being and growing. It is all there.

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(a) Begetting

We have read passages in which the word "begotten" is used concerning certain people, a certain type of creation, "begotten of God." The seed, the fertilizing principle, is the Word of God, and the life is the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of life. Within the Word of God - of course specifically within the Word of truth in the Scriptures, but in anything that God says, that really comes from God to us - there are contained all the wonderful possibilities, potentialities, of what is of God, of what is like God, of God's nature, of God's mind, of God's features, of all the dimensions to which God would bring a life; the very shape of the life which God would produce. It is all there when God speaks. When God says something, and His Word falls into suitable ground and has that corresponding answer of fertilizing faith, it is all potentially there. (You will remember that it was said of some that the Word spoken profited them nothing, not being mingled with faith in them that heard it (Heb. 4:2), so that there was no begetting. There are always two sides to this matter, but we are not going to be too detailed and analytical. Some things will have to be taken for granted.) But when God says something and sees in us a response, an answer back to God, all that wonderful fullness of Divine meaning, intention, possibility, kind, order, shape, size and everything else, is there in what God has said. Something has happened and wonderful possibilities exist. It is possible, of course, for God to come with His Word, with all the mighty potentialities of begetting, and for nothing to happen because of our attitude, but, given the response, given the counterpart of faith, and anything within the compass of Divine intention and conception is possible.

Now I am stressing this very much because I feel that we have become too familiar with hearing the truth of God. So often nothing happens. We have not sufficiently recognized the tremendous things that are bound up with the Lord speaking to us. If the Lord has said anything to you, be very careful that you give heed, that you do not let that go, that you do not despise that. God does not come for nothing with such an object in view, and with such tremendous possibilities; He is not playing with us. It is the most solemn as well as the most glorious thing, in possibility and prospect, if, and when, the Lord speaks to us. Do believe that. You see, within His speaking, within His Word, there is all the possibility of God coming into expression.

I have illustrated this before in days gone by by the seed merchant who has a double window to his shop. On one side of the door, he has the seeds and the bulbs to look at - very uninteresting-looking, unpromising things. There is nothing attractive in their appearance; you do not want to take out your artist's palette and make paintings of seeds and bulbs. But, on the other side of his window, he has the full flower - the flower fully developed in its exquisite colors and wonderful form and he says, "This is that; all this is in that." That is the marvel of living things.

And when God speaks, all that is of God is there in that speaking, and when you and I get to glory and are glorified together with Him, He will only say, "This is that. You gave heed to something I said, and this is the result. I spoke to you: you received, you obeyed, you gave diligence: well, this is that - this is not something extra; it is just that." Do believe, do remember, that the Lord is constantly wanting to speak and to speak in the nature of a begetting - the bringing into being of an organism which is produced in heaven and has all heavenly features in it.

But of course this is in the power and custodianship of the Spirit of life. We have to receive the Spirit; the Spirit has to be in us to work out all these wonderful things in God's speaking. If we have the Spirit of God within, as we should do, or if the Spirit of God is accompanying the Word to us before we have actually received Him within: if the Spirit of God works upon that Word, then the purpose of God is realized. For us as Christians, it is most important that when we hear what God has to say we should be in the Spirit. It is most important that, when you go to meetings, if God should speak, you should be in the Spirit. You should take every measure to see that you are in the Spirit, that there is nothing there hindering the Spirit, nothing of which you know grieving the Spirit, working against the Spirit of God; because nothing is going to happen if that is so. With all the hearing, nothing will happen. But, being in the Spirit, all the mighty possibilities of God are taken up by the Spirit of God to be made real.

In this begetting, there may be a period of hidden activity, when we do not know what is happening, and perhaps we cannot sense anything happening; but God has spoken, and something has happened: we have answered. For the moment, for the time being, we do not know that anything is taking place, but it will come to light. Presently there will be a sensing that God has done something. That period may be longer or shorter, but it will surely be known that God has said something and God in saying something did something, started something, and His work will be manifested, something will be going on secretly. That is the meaning of being "begotten of God."

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(b) Birth

That leads us, of course, to the next step. Many people have confused these two things - begetting and birth. They are not the same, either in nature or in grace. Birth - what is birth? Birth is the point at which manifestation begins, when what God has been doing begins to show itself, comes out into manifestation; life manifested now in some Divine organism, a new life, a new order of things.

I wonder if you have followed what I have been saying. You see, it is like this so often in the early part of the Christian life. God says something, and His Spirit is with us in the saying, and we make a response. Then, for the moment, we do not know that anything very much has happened. But something has happened. Sooner or later - it may be very soon, almost simultaneously with the act of God in us, or it may be after a period of secret operation within, and faith is being tested as to whether anything has happened at all - something comes out, and we find that we just cannot do what we did before, and we have now got to do things we never did before, and our way of thinking and speaking is becoming challenged and changed and transformed. We find that some new order has come into being, and it is making all the differences, and we are able more and more clearly and definitely to draw the line between what was and what is now, what we were and what we are now. That is the course of the normal Christian life: that this new thing has now begun to manifest itself, and we are aware that something new has been born, and we just cannot be what we were, we just cannot do what we did; we are behaving in new ways; something has come from another world; a new beginning has been made. It is a new organism altogether. "If any man is in Christ, there is a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17).

The main point about a constitution of a particular kind is that it begins to manifest its kind. That is birth - something of a particular kind. "Except one be born anew [or 'from above'] he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). The kingdom of God is a kind of order, a nature of things; not just a sphere, a place, but how things are done with God, in God's realm of things; what is fitting to God's realm, suitable to God's realm; how things happen and work in God's realm. And this new organism shows the nature of what is born in God's realm. Well, sometimes a little baby does act like a monkey, but normally it acts like a human being! I mean, it conforms to type. Some baby Christians act very strangely, but it is not long before you begin to realize that they are of another mold, everybody else begins to realize they are of another order, a new kind of being has been brought into manifestation, and now quite spontaneously they act according to their species, a heavenly order. That is being born from God - a manifestation of something, the bringing to light of something. That is very elementary, but it is testing.

(c) Growth

And if that is true as to the beginnings, then it must be true, increasingly true, in the matter of growth, following begetting and birth. Here a few quite simple but very vital things have to be noted.

(1) Christ Imparted

What is the principle and the basis of the growth of this heavenly organism, begotten of God, born from above? Well, the principle of growth is, from beginning to end, Christ imparted. All the Scriptures as the Word of God center in Christ. So is the begetting, the birth and the growth, all related to Christ. It is Christ imparted. Any ministry claiming to be the Word of God, which does not center in Christ, will not have God's effect. It is very important always to keep Christ to the fore if you are going to have God's ends reached: because from start to finish, initially, progressively and finally, God's object is the imparting of Christ - the imparting of Christ through the Word, by teaching, and the Holy Spirit working upon the Word, upon the teaching, concerning Christ.

It is something more than information about Christ. It is a ministration of Christ by the Spirit in the Word. I am quite sure you have learned, one way or the other - that is, negatively or positively, by failure or by success - you have learned that if you neglect the Word of God, if you neglect the ministry of the Word, your spiritual life is going to fall away, your spiritual growth is going to be stultified, arrested. If your Bible is kept to the fore all the time - I do not mean that you are reading it all day and night, but that it has the foremost place, so that if you can by any means get some few minutes with the Word of God you are after it - that is the way of growth, the way of the Spirit, the way of spiritual formation. Neglect the Word and neglect the ministry of Christ, and you lose out spiritually.

That is very elementary, but it is true. If Satan can raise up any excuse for your Bible remaining closed and out of hand, if he can fill your hands and your mind and your time with anything to keep you from the Word of God or from the ministry of the Word, he will do it. He is out to cut clean across your growth spiritually, because it is the increase of Christ. It is against the increase of Christ that he is set.

Take that quite solemnly. I say you prove it one way or the other. We have all proved it. We know that if we lose the ministration of the Word we lose our spiritual life. Christ is ministered to us for growth. And what is true of the Word is equally true of prayer: because, although we make prayer nine-tenths a matter of trying to get the Lord to serve our convenience, to be at hand just to give us the things we want, the real meaning of prayer is that we truly receive the Lord, we receive Christ. If we are seeking Christ in prayer, prayer will have a wonderfully refreshing, renewing, strengthening ministry. How often, in the weariness, the terrible weariness, of the way, when it seems impossible to drag on any farther, if we just get away quietly for a few minutes with the Lord and draw in prayer upon Him - "Lord, I need You, I need strength, I need renewal" - how refreshed we are. It is so. If only we would make prayer more a matter of a ministry of Christ to us - not of asking for a lot of things that will make our lives a bit easier and more pleasant, but the increase of Christ -! The Holy Spirit works on that, He responds to that. So then, growth is a ministry of Christ through the Word - the teaching, the instruction, the ministry - and through prayer.

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(2) Christ Assimilated

But then there is something further. After you have taken your meal, it may do you no good - it may do you a lot of harm. Food is not everything. There is such a thing as assimilation, and this is where the enemy usually scores. If he cannot stop us from the one thing and the other, the Word and the prayer, he will make frantic efforts to break in here. We must therefore make sure that, whatever has to be suspended for it, we do have at least a brief time for dwelling on the impartation, dwelling on Christ, dwelling on the Word.

That means an inward attitude. If you take food, and you have not, as it were, the right inward attitude toward that food, it does not do you any good. There is a complaint which has to do with what is called the pancreas, and if the pancreas is not functioning properly the food does not nourish the body. You can take as much as you like but it does not do any good. You can eat and eat, but the food does not profit the body. You need something to stimulate or restore the function of the pancreas. You know what I mean - this assimilation business, this inward attitude that draws upon the Word, draws upon the Lord, that dwells upon Him, just a few minutes perhaps in a day, but a quiet time of assimilation. That is the way of growth. You may come through eleven meetings of a conference, and what a heap of stuff you get, and it may profit you not a little bit. There is enough in one meeting to carry us a very long time, to accomplish a very great deal of spiritual growth and yet it may effect nothing at all. What do you do about it? Do you lay hold inwardly? Is your attitude, "I must have this! If this can help my spiritual life and growth, I lay hold of this, I break this up!" - do you take this attitude? It is essential to growth. Growth is organic, it is vital.

(3) Christ Known

And then, in the third place, growth is by Christ known - what the New Testament calls spiritual understanding. The Holy Spirit, working through the Word, working through prayer, working through our meditation, would bring us into an intelligence concerning the Lord, so that we are able to say, "Yes, I heard that, I received that; I have laid hold of that, I have been exercised over that; but I understand now, I see the meaning, the importance, the value: I see." And there is a great deal connected with spiritual understanding in our spiritual growth. You know how true that is shown to be in the Word. Even one who had seen so much, and been given so much; who could say, "Well, coming to visions and revelations of the Lord, I knew a man about fourteen years ago caught up into heaven, shown unspeakable things not lawful for a man to utter" (2 Cor. 12:1-4); even such a man, who had had all that and much more, could say, as his life, his course here, was coming to an end, "'that I may know him' - that is still my ambition." It is growth by knowledge.

And that man wrote, as we know so well, to those who had some fairly rich impartation of Divine ministry - for consider how long Paul was at Ephesus. He said concerning his ministry: "I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). What a lot he had given those Ephesian believers! And yet he says, in writing to them at last, toward the end: "I... cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him" ("the full knowledge of Him" is the word used); "having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling. what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe" (Eph. 1:15-19). There is something in knowing, in seeing, in understanding. It is the way of enlargement, the way of growth.

Of course, that is normal in a normal human being. We grow, and as we grow our understanding increases, and as our understanding increases so we grow. Spiritual understanding works both ways. It is a grand thing to find Christians, and even young Christians, who are getting to know the Lord - not just living on addresses and externalities, but themselves growing in the knowledge of the Lord.

All this is certainly vital union with Christ, and it is certainly organic. It is a matter of life, and it is a way of life, and it is all a matter of our union with our Lord. That is what provides it, that is what provokes it, that is what stimulates it, that is what begins it, that is what maintains it, that is what completes it. So you may come to John 15, and you have it all there, "In Me"; "abide in Me"; "in Me bear fruit"; "abide in Me, bear much fruit"; and so it goes on. It is all "in Christ."

[Shammu]

Chapter 9 - Consummated Union

7. Consummated Union

"And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, that he took with him Peter and John and James, and went up into the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became white and dazzling. And behold, there talked with him two men, who were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep: but when they were fully awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him. And it came to pass, as they were parting from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah: not knowing what he said. And while he said these things, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my Son, my chosen: hear ye him. And when the voice came, Jesus was found alone" (Luke 4:28-36).

"And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him... For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God" (Romans 8:17,19-21).

"...When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed... in that day" (2 Thess. 1:10).

"Behold, I tell you a mystery: We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" (1 Cor. 15:51-55).

"The Lord Jesus Christ... shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory" (Phil. 3:20-21).

"For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Heb. 2:10).

"And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God" (Rev. 21:10-11).

We have, first of all, to take a far backward look to remind ourselves that, when God made man, He constituted him with a view to transfiguration: that is, with a view to Divine glory. That was His intention. But man revolted against God and committed spiritual suicide and, in his rebellion and failure, forfeited that wonderful destiny and, as we have read, God instantly pronounced "Vanity" upon the whole creation, or, as we expressed it earlier in this series, wrote at the heart of this creation and of man: "Disappointment." But God made His appointment with another man, the Man after His own heart, His own Son, who became Son of Man; and in that other Man, the Man Christ Jesus, eternal union was secured between those whom God foreknew as believers in Christ and His Son. He secured in His Son a new creation which could be transfigured or glorified. When we see the Lord Jesus in transfiguration on that mountain, we see in Him personally what the first Adam ought to have come to - man glorified, man transfigured; and when we read all these things later about being glorified together with Him, His bringing many sons to glory, our bodies being made like unto the body of His glory and the heavenly Jerusalem having the glory of God, and all those wonderful things, we just see the realization of the original intention. This is what God meant to be from the beginning, and which might, without any trouble or tragedy, have taken place so much earlier, through man's triumph in the time of his probation and testing.

But it is all now consummated in Christ Jesus, the Man in the glory. Glory, as we are never tired of saying, is the gratification of God the Creator and of His whole creation. Glory is simply being able to say, in the full wonderful enjoyment and realization: "This is how it ought to be!" That is glory. You know that even in little ways. You perhaps do not call it glory, but you feel it. If anything is just as you feel it ought to be, then inside you have a touch, a tinge, of glory. But conceive of mankind as a whole, and the whole creation, being just as they were meant to be, and everybody, without reservation or question, being able to say, "Well, this is as it ought to be!" - and that is glory. And when God can say - and His standard is very high, it is absolute - when God from His standpoint can say, "This is exactly as it ought to be, as I intended it to be": well, that indeed will be the day of glory.

That, then, is the consummation of this union with Christ, the union which we have been considering from its various aspects. The eternal union of being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world; the creational and racial union of our being a new creation in Christ Jesus as the last Adam, the second Man; the marital union when the bride shall have made herself ready, when all those affectional relationships between Him and her and her and Him have been brought to fullness, when no longer any question or doubt, hesitation or reservation of confidence exists: a perfect merging of two lives, His and His Church's - the marriage supper of the Lamb: this is the consummation of that. Further, the vocational union where the house of God has been established and God's heavenly order has been set up and manifested; the functional union of the Body of Christ, where that Body has served for the manifestation of Himself as its indwelling personality; and vital union, organic union, where His life, His Divine heavenly life, has brought the organism to its perfect expression and fulfillment. These are the aspects of union, all of which are taken up in this ultimate consummation - the consummation of all His glory.

cont'd next post

[Shammu]

Now you see that, in the passages we have read, all of which deserve much fuller consideration than we are giving them, this consummation is viewed in various ways and connections.

First we note the individual consummation, spiritual and physical. There are the individual sons being brought to glory, and in being brought to glory the individual physical body is transformed. It is a wonderful statement: "the body of our humiliation (shall) be conformed to the body of his glory" - all doctors and nurses out of a job, and all undoubtedly very glad to be so! All that realm of things finished, wound up; bodies of glory, glorified bodies "like unto the body of his glory." It is called the change from corruptible to incorruptible. How marvelous - incapable of being corrupted!

Oh, we would like to stop for a little while on the resurrection body of the Lord Jesus. It was a most wonderful thing, that raising of the Lord Jesus from the dead. Joseph begged the body of Jesus, and then, being given it, he and Nicodemus bought a hundred pounds' weight of embalming spices. It is a fairly good weight, a hundred pounds! You can picture those two old fellows carrying that tremendous load. And then they wrapped Him in the linen garment, and inside the garment all that weight of spices was wrapped up. And when they came into the tomb; after His resurrection they found it all there in order - no scattering of the spices all over the tomb; it is all there in order, the shape is unaltered. He has come through it all. Just as He passed through the closed doors later on, He has come out and left the shell. That is some indication of what a glorified body can do.

To be "conformed to the body of his glory": that is an individual consummation of union with Christ. The spirit is already joined with Him. "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17), and that union of spirit is going to be consummated in a glorification of body, a new body of glory. That is the end of it. We have seen the corporate aspect of it. There are sons, but there is a seed. It is the same thing under another title or designation. It is the corporate Body of Christ: the Church glorified, "having the glory of God." The Church, having been His Body, having been in this manifold union with Him, is going to be a "glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing"; the Church of glory having the glory of God.

And then - wonderful passage! - Christ is going to be vindicated in His saints, Christ vindicated in those in whom He has been dwelling. "He shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed": Christ vindicated in His saints - a glorious thing. We who, here and now in this world, have been despised, who have been thought little or nothing of, we who have been set aside, who have been maligned, have been persecuted, who have suffered simply because Christ is in us, simply because of our union with Christ - oh, what it has meant, what it has sometimes cost! - that Christ in us is going to be glorified in us and marveled at in us. The scene is going to change: the indwelling of Christ is not always going to be a thing which means suffering, adversity, persecution, sorrow and trial. The indwelling of Christ ultimately in the consummation is going to be a most glorious thing - glorified in His saints and marveled at. We can understand that, if we view Him objectively, we shall marvel at Him when we see Him. But here the statement is that He is going to be marveled at in all them that have believed. It is the vindication of Christ and the vindication of the saints.

Now let us note that this is not only a future prospect. We could get excited about our visions and our dreams, our illusions - as they might be. We could have these wonderful ideas and conceptions, simply because they constitute the Christian faith. Christians believe such things as these. These are the things which go to make up what is called the religion of Christianity. But it is not just that. Oh, no: Christianity is, being different from all other religions, subject to experiment. It allows of being put to the test, and it stands up to the test and bears present evidence of its full reality. The hopes and expectations and anticipations of Christians are not just and only lying in the future. In the day in which you and I become, or in which any man or woman becomes, joined to the Lord, in a definite act, there is instantly an evidence of the ultimate glory.

Your experience and history may bear that out - so much so, that you find yourself looking back to those days, to the beginning, almost with longing eyes, with a wistful heart. There are people who sing, and who sing quite in accordance with their spirit:

"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?"

"Return, O holy Dove, return
Sweet messenger of rest!"

They go on,

"The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from Thy throne,
And worship only Thee."

 Yes, many have come to have to sing like that; but whether you sing like that or not, whether that is true or not - and it ought not to be true of Christians - there is always a looking back to those first days. For many of us it is like that. I remember so clearly my own first days and months, when the Lord got a full, clear, free way in my heart and life; they were wonderful. Not that they have not been wonderful since! But what happened? Why, we just had a taste of the glory! The evidence was born there and then that we were made for glory: our coming into the new creation in Christ Jesus is at once sealed and stamped with the destiny of the new creation - glory. God's new beginnings are always with glory.

cont'd next post

[Shammu]

But this is not only at the beginning - it happens repeatedly in the course of the Christian life. Sadly enough, we do not just go straight on without some tumbles, falls, blunders, sinning, slipping up, making grievous and sad mistakes in our Christian life, and when we do it the enemy is not slow to rush in and seek to put us right out altogether. We begin to feel very sad and very sorry for ourselves, and down we go; our spirits droop, and we get locked up with this thing. The glory has gone, and we think it is never going to come back again. But then somehow the Lord says something to us, He speaks to us again His word of reassurance, and the thing is put right; we lay hold in faith again, and the glory comes back. The Lord has not forsaken us, the destiny is not lost - it comes back again.

We go away from the Lord and we are miserable. There is no glory in being away from the Lord. You can see the difference between people when they were going on with the Lord and what they are now. But come back and you find glory is waiting. It is the experience again and again in our lives. The glory is waiting: we were made for it: our union with Christ is the assurance of it. Our drifting from Christ suspends the glory: we come back and it is there again. Get a controversy with the Lord, or let the Lord have a controversy with you - something about which the Lord has spoken, something that He has indicated as not according to His mind, or perhaps some experience, trial, difficulty, through which He allows us to pass - and we become bitter, sour, grieved; we allow ourselves to be gripped in the cold hand of that grievance with the Lord, and the glory all goes. But when we come back and put right the thing that the Lord has required, or return to the Lord and hand over the grievance, and say, "Well, this is only ruining the whole of my life, spoiling everything; it must not remain I am going on with the Lord whatever it costs" - the glory comes back.

This glorification at the end is no fiction and it is no mere future expectation. It is a thing to which the Holy Spirit is witnessing all the way along. And may that not be one of the reasons why He brings about these crises in our lives - so that we shall not take too much for granted, that there shall be something continuously or repeatedly wonderful in our union with Christ? But what is the real purpose of these crises? Why does the Lord bring these crises in our lives? When we come up against things or are taken through difficult experiences and the necessity arises for some fresh adjustment, some fresh letting go, what is it all about? Well, you see, it all amounts to just this - making more room for the Lord Jesus because it is Christ who is the ground of glory: God's appointment is with His Son. Away from His Son it is disappointment: but when the Son gets a fuller place, a larger place, in us - perhaps through a crisis, through a battle, a re-adjustment - when He gets a fuller place there is still more ground for the glory of God. It is Christ in us who is the hope of glory; it is Christ in us who is the ground of glory. It is, in other words, our union with Christ that is to issue in glory, and as that union becomes deeper, stronger, fuller, more settled, so the ground for glory increases. We seem, as we go on in the Christian life, to have deeper crises all the way along. Somehow or other we come to the place where we think we have touched bottom, we can never go deeper; then we do get taken into something deeper, and the situation seems more hopeless than ever; but the Lord brings us through, and there is more life than ever, more of the Lord than ever, more glory than ever. Well, the word in the New Testament is: "the Spirit of glory resteth upon you" (1 Pet. 4:14). The way to glory is the suffering: as it was with the Head, so it must be with the members; as it was with the Master, so it must be with the servant; as with Him, so with us. It is the suffering and the glory - that is the way.

I will close there. It is the glorious end that is in view, and the end, let me repeat, can be put to the test now. You will perhaps remember my saying on former occasions that with me the matter of the Lord's coming does not rest and remain just as a matter of prophecy. I do not find a very great deal of exhilaration and inspiration in studying prophecy about the coming of the Lord. That is all right - do not misunderstand me! If you like to study prophecy, study it; but it does not always result in glory. But I do find this, that when we sing about the Lord's coming, it is not just the effervescence and enthusiasm of a few people singing. Something extra seems to come in, and that something extra is the Spirit of glory: because the Holy Spirit is not past, present and future - the Holy Spirit is timeless. The Holy Spirit is eternally - now - eternity in any one minute. With the Holy Spirit, the coming of the Lord Jesus is as though it were now. Speak of the coming, and the Holy Spirit says, "Yes, here is the evidence of it!" He gives it in the midst of the saints, and something of the glory is there when you sing about the coming of the Lord. It is not just a reminder that things are going to be better in the future. It is a touch and a taste of that future coming into the "now." That is a good note on which to close: a note of the present reality of these things, all put to the test and experienced now, because the glory is not only future. We have the Spirit of glory resting upon us now, to attest the end all along the way. May the Lord keep us Christians like that, living in the spiritual good of our faith; not upon doctrine alone, not upon truths, but in the reality of those things in the Holy Spirit now.

The End

Up next; The True Christian Life A Supernatural Life

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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 - The Riches Of His Grace

“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out!”  (Rom. 11:33; A.S.V.).

“Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the nations the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8 ).

So, with the enablement of the Lord, we are going to move in these deep waters and seek to discover a little of the unsearchable riches of Christ, the depth of the riches of the wisdom, and the knowledge of Christ. The Apostle Paul, who used these words was striving against the limitations of language to give expression to something of what he had come to realize as to the Christ, as to the salvation in Christ, into which he had been brought. He does use these many superlatives, straining to find words to speak of the unsearchable, inexhaustible, unfathomable, infinite wealth of the riches of Christ.

“O The Depth Of The Riches”

This man Paul was able to speak in this way about the riches of Christ just for one reason: his sufferings in Christ; and you and I will never be able rightly to use such language unless we go the way that he went, the way of the Cross. You see, in order to find things which are deep, you have to go into the depth. You will never find deep things in the shallows. You have to go down and down, and get very low. And that in itself explains the Lord’s dealings with His people—it is the answer to the cries of the heart in deep and dark and difficult places and times. Why? If we could but realize it, we should hear the answer coming back to us: that you may discover and appropriate spiritual wealth. These riches do not lie on the surface at all: they are the hidden treasures of dark and secret places. And wealthy souls are ever and always those who have touched something of the depth in their walk with God.

Now here is a man whom you know from the many things that he has placed on record, a man who had many—otherwise—inexplicable experiences. His catalogue of sufferings and adversities of every kind is written for us largely in his Second Letter to the Corinthians. We know that half of chapter six is taken up with the things which befell him.—

“Giving no offence in anything, that the ministry be not blamed: but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:3–10).

And in other places too, he makes reference to his sufferings in Christ:—

“Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:23–28).

And if ever a man had a reason to ask, “Why?” it was that man. ‘Why, Lord, are you letting me spend a night and a day in the deep? Being again and again and yet again thrashed with rods, imprisoned, dealt with treacherously by mine own brethren,’ and so on and so on. ‘Why, Lord? I am devoted to You. I have a heart for You. I am not seeking mine own ends, but Yours. I am utterly committed to Your interests. There are many who are not so committed, and they do not have to go the way that I am going.’ Why? For such a man with such a devotion, with such an abandon to the interests of his Lord, why is this man suffering more than any other man, perhaps even more than the whole apostolic company?! Not one of us will ever measure up to this man’s sufferings, although we may sometimes think that ours are just about the limit. I imagine that very few in this little company this afternoon have not had times when they have asked the big “Why?” as to the strangeness of the Lord’s dealings and the Lord’s ways with them.

Now does it not strike you very forcibly, and very significantly that such a man cries for language to express what he has seen in the Lord Jesus and says: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” (Rom. 11:33). He says, “To me, not the greatest of the apostles, to me, not the greatest saint, to me, not as one more than any other, but less than all, to me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach... the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8; A.S.V.). Yes, we know the riches came through this man, because for two thousand years, the Church has been drawing upon the riches which he reached and received through trials and sufferings. Riches are still coming to us today from that man, perhaps even now. May it be so Lord, today, for that reason. It may sound discouraging, but, dear ones, there is no other way to receive the riches than through suffering.

Some time ago, on one of my visits to India, we came on the Persian Gulf; and as I looked on the Gulf of Persia, I saw the pearl fishers way out there in the depths, spending their long, patient hours seeking goodly pearls. This is a lonely and perilous business. For there in the water, I saw sharks lurking about and looking for prey. And then later that night, after dark, I went into the Persian market, the bazaar, and through the narrow aisles between the stalls, I saw displayed in those stalls glorious pearls and other priceless gems. There they were, having been brought in from the depths, now polished and displayed.

And then, as I boarded the boat to go on to India, a pearl merchant came on with his cabinets of gems and pearls. These were bound in iron, with strong padlocks on them; and as that sheik sat in his seat, he kept his eye on those cabinets and would not take his eye off of them until we landed and he had delivered them to the merchants in India. These were valuable things, precious things, from the depths. They were costly, because they had cost. They were valuable, because there was painful and lonely vigil behind their obtaining. You see, perils had been associated with securing them.

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 This is a parable, but this is what Paul is really talking about—the perils, the loneliness, the long drawn out vigils, the sufferings and the afflictions to obtain the riches, and that not for himself, but for the Church. He said, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the Church” (Col. 1:24; A.S.V.). I say, there is no other way for us to do more than to talk about and read about and use the language of the riches. There is no other way for us to possess them than to go into the depth and find them. The unsearchable riches—does that sound like a contradiction?—you have them and they are unsearchable—you have them and yet they are too deep to lay hold of—I know this sounds like a contradiction, but Paul simply means: all the meaning, all the value, all the wealth that is here, only a little of which we may know in this life, all that wealth is really beyond us, it is too big; it is past finding out; “it is past tracing out.” Well, that is where we begin with the riches, but we do not end there, for we are going to look, as the Lord will help us, at some of these riches, these unsearchable riches.

So, if you at any time would care to look into your New Testament with that word “riches” in hand, you will see how it is connected with different things, because the riches are many-sided, as seen in...

“The riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7),
“The riches of His Glory” (Eph. 3:16),
“The riches of His Inheritance in the saints” (Eph.1:18),
“The riches of the full assurance of understanding” (Col. 2:2).

I do not know how far the Lord will lead us in this, but we can begin where the riches begin. Therefore we have to begin with “the riches of His grace.”

There is another word linked with that phrase, “the riches of His grace.” It is “the riches of His goodness.” The apostle asks, “Despisest thou the riches of His goodness...?” (Rom. 2:4). That word of scripture will always be beyond us. We may as well settle it now and throw up our hands in utter despair right at the beginning. You and I are never going to fathom that depth nor comprehend that fullness nor understand that grace. I do not hope for a moment to be able to plumb the depth of that word; that is why we can only just dip into these depths—“the riches of His grace” and “the riches of His goodness.”

We have a very hackneyed way of defining grace. It has been put into a phrase, and we do not get very much further than that phrase. If we ask, “What is the meaning of grace?” the traditional answer is: “Grace is unmerited favor.” Yes, it is that, it is unmerited favor. That very definition does introduce us to the basic character of grace, but that is a weak definition. Yes, it is “unmerited favour,” and, yes, thank God for that. But what do you mean by that? Just this—you have no merit, and God just comes to you because you have no merit. Nothing can merit grace.

Now, dear friends, I want to say to you, that grace is more than unmerited favour. First, on our side, it is worse than that because grace does not only come to where there is no merit, but grace also comes where there is a great deal of demerit, demerit. You can see that demerit is stronger than no merit. No merit may be negative, but demerit is positive. It is everything that is not only without merit but of the nature and character of that which is perfect demerit. You and I are not only without worthiness, but also you and I are worse than that. We are positively everything that we should not be!

If you will turn again to this man Paul who is speaking this way about himself, not only does he say, “To me, who am less than the least of all saints” (Eph. 3:, he also says: “I am the chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Now that is positive: “not only less than the least,” but positively, “the chief of sinners.” “I persecuted the Church of God, and wasted it” (Gal.1:13), ‘I gave my consent to the murder of His beloved servant Stephen’ (Acts 8:1). And he will tell you not only of his lack of merit but a great deal more about his demerit. Everything that was there in that man was an offence to God; and if anything could stand in the way of grace, it was there in that man. But, you see, grace just means that demerit, not only no merit, but demerit does not set grace aside. Grace is just grace, whatever the condition, however great the demerit, that is grace.

As Christians, you and I have got to learn a great deal more about grace as we go on. Perhaps all this is something that the Christian has to reckon with even more so than the unsaved. If you and I are really moving with God, you and I are coming more and more to the place where we do say from the depth of our being, “But for the grace of God.” For me, even as a Christian, after all these years, I will not get through except for the grace of God. As I see and understand it, it takes a great deal more of grace for me now as a Christian than it did to save me at the beginning.

Now to some, that may seem a strange thing to say, but again I am referring to grace. For are we not discovering all the time what we did not know even at the beginning, which is, the presence of the demerit in ourselves?! Oh, yes, but don’t you see that is just the character of grace, and that is what grace really means. Grace has no meaning unless that is true.

So, then, let us note this second thing about grace. Grace never recognizes any debt. Grace is not a payment of any debt; grace is not in our debt at all. God is not dealing with us in grace because He owes us something. This is only another way of speaking about the absence of merit and the presence of demerit. You see, no one has a claim upon the grace of God. God is not our debtor; grace does not recognize any such thing as being in debt and having to pay its way with us. Grace is free, grace is not something for which God is trying to pay us back. It is all the other way around. We are the debtors, God is the creditor, and grace is just grace; and there is perhaps nothing else that we can say about it, because grace is just His free, spontaneous movement without any obligation. That is the basic nature, the character of grace.

When we realize this true nature of grace and the positive demerit about ourselves, and that God is under no obligation to us, then we realize God just makes “grace abound”—“where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly” (Rom. 5:20; A.S.V.). Now is that not true?—“where sin abounded,” grace does so much more abound?! Then we begin to understand what the depth of the riches may be. We are introduced into a realm that is beyond us. Beyond us, is it not? And any soul that has not come to the time and state of just wondering in amazement at God’s voluntary, spontaneous, free, unmerited favor, the soul that has not come there, has not begun to know the meaning of such words as “the riches of His grace”; and that one can never truly be a wealthy soul.

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The Works—The Appreciation Of Grace

So much for the present about the character of grace, but you know that grace is always set over against works. Although we are so familiar with this truth, let us just dwell upon it for a moment—upon works and grace. You see this represents a change, a complete change and reversal of position. Grace changes place with works, or changes the place of works. Grace does not obliterate works. Grace does not say there are never to be works. Grace will demand works; and if it is rightly appreciated, grace will get much more and much better works than any before. But grace does just change the place of works, the works of the Law. What were the works of the law? What are the works of the Law? They are the works in order to get merit, are they not? To get merit, that is the idea. To get merit, to obtain merit, to pay God back with your merit.

Look at the scribes and the Pharisees. O, how abhorrent, how obnoxious, was their behavior, their activities and pretenses to the Lord Jesus Himself. They sought merit by works. Giving God something for His enrichment?! Yes, works of the Law to obtain merit were works to give as currency to pay God, thus putting God into our debt and making Him our debtor?! And are we doing all these things to get ourselves out of discredit and give our credit to God? When grace comes in, you see, grace puts the works in another place altogether and takes them out of the first place and puts them into the last. And instead of Law being first, it is grace first. Instead of works for merit being first, it is just God’s own grace without any works whatsoever to obtain any satisfaction and pleasure of God.

And then what? All works have not been ruled out of the universe. When grace has come in, if we have really grasped the meaning of grace, we will work more than anyone else has ever worked. But now they are the works of appreciation of grace, not to obtain it, not to merit it, but the works of thanks to God for His unspeakable gift of grace. It changes the place of things, puts things right around the other way. Someone has put this into a rather cryptic phrase: Works do not justify, but the justified person works. Well, that is quite true. “I laboured,” said the Apostle, “more abundantly than them all” (1 Cor. 15:10). And that was true, but was he talking merit?— then he had no right to talk about grace. But he is the man who does talk about grace, and he “laboured more abundantly than them all” because of the overwhelming grace of God to him. The position was entirely reversed, not law and works to obtain favour, but works of love and devotion because of favour obtained. It is a complete reversal.

God’s Work Of Grace

Now then, what about God’s work of grace? What was true in the first material, natural creation is true spiritually in the new creation. You know that so well. It only needs to be mentioned, and at once you will see it. There was chaos, there was darkness, there was the absence of God. But God moved in and dispelled the darkness and turned the chaos into cosmos order and got to work: He got to work, step by step and stage by stage, upward, upward all the time, creating, ordering, providing a beautiful earth, a wonderful place. So is the description of it. Now He could look upon all His work and pass His verdict, it was “very good.”

This was the verdict of an infinitely perfect God Who is so meticulous, Who is so exacting, Who will never pass anything that is imperfect. When He has finished it all, He puts man right into the middle of it, and says: ‘There you are, that is your inheritance, your inheritance is what I have already done. What you have come into, is not something that you have got to make, but what I have already made. Not what you have to do, but what I have already done. You begin your vocation in gratitude where I end My work on your behalf.’

You can clearly see the corresponding truth in the New Creation where it is not working unto something, but it is working after everything has been done. You and I come into God’s perfect work. Of course, the simple form of preaching the gospel is to speak about “the finished work of Christ,” but do we understand these glib phrases? All that God has done in and through and by His Son Jesus Christ in the perfecting of salvation, of redemption, of His work is so that the reception of His Son back into heaven is complete. And that reception of His Son is simply because God has nothing more to do so far as providing the ground of His work is concerned. The Lord Jesus could never have gone back to heaven unless the work was full and final and perfect. If there had been one further touch or stroke, He would not have gone back. They would not have received Him in heaven. If we may so speak, they would have said, ‘Look here, You have left something undone.’ “I have not found Thy works perfect before My God.” And He would have had to come back again, but He did not. God had in Him perfected and finished His New Creation.

And then He began with us, to bring us into it and say, ‘Look here, you have not got to work unto this, you have got to inherit the New Creation, take possession of it, and live in the good of it and learn to understand what you have got and appreciate it.’ These are the works of God. They are finished so far as the Lord Jesus is concerned—The works of grace.

If that garden and that first material creation is something grand, beautiful and glorious from the hand of God, and wholly satisfies His heart, then His Son is more than that. More than a symbolic creation, an earthly thing, His Son is the final fullness of perfection. He gives us His Son! Perhaps you and I have not fully grasped that, and this is where we are in so much trouble, dear friends. There is no doubt about it. I would go so far as to say that nine-tenths of our spiritual troubles are here, because we are listening all the time to the accuser and the condemner.

When things go hard, get difficult, and go contrary and against us, then the devil is saying, ‘It is because of something about you, your demerit, something is wrong with you.’ And you go and plead with the Lord, and say, ‘Lord, what is it that you have got against me?’ You spend your hours pleading with God to show you what He has got against you, and why your circumstances are the way they are, and what the thing is that He has got against you that is resulting in His dealings with you in this way.

It is just here that the enemy is turning us aside from this work of grace. But why was a work of grace going to be done? And we will come to that presently, but it was done in order to conform us, to change us. We are not now under judgment and condemnation. We are under grace! And Satan will never cease in this life to try and undercut grace and bring us back under law and to bondage. But you and I really do need to grasp and believe the unsearchable riches of His grace.

God’s work is completed for us to inherit. There will be a battle, a tremendous battle, as there was with Israel in the land after they crossed the Jordan and got through the death of Calvary, the battle in the land is to get the possession of our inheritance. It is so familiar that before ever we get a foothold, the Lord has said, ‘I have given you the inheritance.’ “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it” (Joshua 1:3; A.S.V.). It is secured in Christ for us.

Now, then, I must leave this for the present. Although these are truths with which we are so familiar, I think the great truth remains. You and I as the Lord’s Own people, beloved of Him, you and I have got to learn more and more deeply the meaning of this first thing—the grace of God. We must learn what grace really is and what grace really means. Withal we must learn how deep, how vast, how unfathomable and unsearchable are what the Word calls, “the riches of His grace.”