Books by T. Austin-Sparks

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4. Justification

Justification sets forth a standing or position to which the believer is brought. Each of the preceding steps relates and leads to justification. Substitution sees the sin question dealt with; representation sees the old creation removed and the new brought in; redemption sees the link with Satan and his kingdom destroyed. When these three things have been effected, then we have the answer to the question, "How can man be just with God?" (Job 9:2), or, in other words, How can a man stand in the presence of God as just, or righteous? The full answer is that we are justified in Christ Jesus. Through faith's acceptance of His substitutionary, representative, and redemptive work, we are now accepted in Him and are upon the wonderful footing of being regarded in the light of His perfections. He is made unto us righteousness from God. It is "the righteousness of (which is from) God through faith" (Rom. 3:22). This position is an utter one from God's standpoint and must be so from ours. It is a position to be taken in its fullness by faith and maintained as a way in which to walk by faith. "The just shall live by faith" (Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38). Satan will never cease to try to bring us back on to the old ground, and this he will do by ever bringing up to us what we are in ourselves and getting our eyes off Christ. His methods are countless, but the answer to them all is "Not what I am, O Lord, but what Thou art," and a strong holding on and looking off unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith.

5. Reconciliation

The justified are reconciled. In our natural condition, we were alienated from, and at enmity with, God, and indeed we WERE enmity against God. It only requires given conditions to bring out from every one of us some positive rebelliousness; but in Christ Jesus and His mighty reconciling work in His Cross, we who "were far off are made nigh" (Eph. 2:13); we who were enmity are at peace. We are brought into the blessed fellowship of a new life and a new spirit.

6. Regeneration

Regeneration is not something extra to what has gone before, but is a feature or factor in all. It puts its finger upon that which has taken place in us. By regeneration something is present which was not there before, a life from God which only the born-again possess, an indwelling of the Holy Spirit which is not true of any others. This Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has in it all the potentialities of a new creation in every part. There is a new consciousness, a new capacity, a new sense of relationships, a new direction, a new standard, a new vocation. Indeed, it is the birth of a new child. Everything is new and has to be learned from the beginning. We really know nothing of God's thoughts and ways and standards and purposes until we are regenerated. The freedom and fullness in which we move in our new life and all that it means will largely depend upon our recognition of what has gone before, and perhaps especially of our death and resurrection union with Christ, because here, in this new creation order, the old mentality has no place, and it is only to hamper the work of the Spirit in us if we persist in bringing over OUR ideas, OUR desires, OUR judgments, OUR choices, even if we think them to be in the interests of the Lord. We have to learn that the best of our old make-up may be all out of line with the simplest things of the Spirit of God. Regeneration is a new creation, and it is essentially NEW.

7. Sonship

Sonship is something more than being born again. It represents growth unto fullness. It is quite a good thing to be a babe while babyhood lasts, but it is a bad thing to be a babe when that period is past. This is the condition of many Christians. Without going into technicalities, the New Testament in its original language makes a very clear distinction between a child and a son. While sonship is inherent in birth, in the New Testament sense sonship is the realization of the possibilities of birth. It is growth to maturity. So the New Testament has a lot to say about growing up, leaving childhood and attaining unto full stature. With this growth comes the greater fullness of Christ and the abundant wealth into which we are saved. The so great salvation has its greater meaning for those who are going on unto full growth. In other words, it is a matter not so much of that from which we are saved, as of that UNTO which we are saved. The grand climax of the new creation is "the revealing of the SONS of God" (Romans 8:19).

8. Sanctification

Sanctification again is an aspect and not necessarily an addition. Briefly, this indicates an act and a process. Sanctification and consecration are alternative and synonymous terms. Firstly, they mean a setting apart or being set apart unto God. The New Testament is quite clear that, as we are justified in Christ by faith, so also we are sanctified in Christ by faith, and that this precedes the work of making us holy in ourselves. Thus to believers who had many imperfections the Apostle addressed his letter - unto "them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1:2). Thus, when we are in Christ, the Divine mind concerning us is that we are wholly set apart unto the Lord. We are as consecrated as anyone can be as to our position. But the same Apostle who refers to believers as already sanctified in Christ Jesus, also writes to believers telling them that his prayer for them is that they may be sanctified wholly, spirit, soul and body (1 Thes. 5:23). This simply means that what we are by position has got to be made good in our state. Sanctification or consecration is fundamentally a matter of separation. With the Fall, an entangling with another nature and order took place. It became organic, therefore constitutional. The Cross of the Lord Jesus cut right in between that order and organism and a new and utterly different one as represented by Christ. Sanctification is, therefore, the working of the Cross in us to make good the nullification of that entangled nature and to bring in, in ever-increasing fullness, what Christ is as that "altogether other." In His simple language of illustration, it is taking up the Cross daily and denying ourselves (Matt. 16:24). But the fuller spiritual explanation of that, which is given us later in the New Testament, is the working of the Cross in us to bring an end to that self-life which is inextricably bound up with a system of evil. Thus, we being regarded as sanctified in Christ Jesus by faith, the process of sanctification is our experimental approximation to the position in which we are placed by the grace of God.

It will be seen that sanctification thus follows closely in the sequence of things and is based upon substitution, redemption, justification, reconciliation, regeneration, sonship.

9. Glorification

In the case of the Lord Jesus, the suffering and glory are always kept together; suffering, the foundation; glory, the topstone. Glorification is the spontaneous issue of the working in us of that Divine life, the incorruptible life of God. That life has in it all the potentialities of glorification. What has been said above is of two activities:

(1) The setting aside of all that cannot be glorified.
(2) The bringing in of the new organism with the new life and its increase unto the fullness of Christ,

and this twofold work of the Cross leads on to glorification. Glorification begins in the spirit, that is, the renewed spirit of the child of God, by reason of the indwelling Spirit of glory, the Holy Spirit. Glorification proceeds as the soul - mind, heart, will; reason, desire, volition - is brought into subjection to the spirit and made its servant; in other words, brought under the Lordship of the Holy Spirit through our spirit. The consummation of glorification will be in the body, "to wit, the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8:23), and "when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption" (1 Cor. 15:54) then this mortal body shall have been made like unto His glorious body, or body of glory. Thus sonship will be completed as the outworking of regeneration; sanctification of spirit, soul and body will be the mark of perfect sonship, and glorification the issue.

Surely we are able, in the light of even this very brief and far from complete consideration of this great range of the work of the Cross, to endorse the term "so great salvation." We are also able to appreciate the seriousness of the warning, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" (Heb. 2:3). God has covered every need and requirement and has compassed the whole ground from A to Z in the Person of His Son and the Work of His Cross.

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Chapter 4 - The Cross And The Lord's Coming Again

This is no more a treatise on the Second Advent of Christ than a former chapter was on the Holy Spirit. Our specific object is to point out the connection between the Cross and the Coming. This will be seen to be the fourth and final intersection on our diagram.

Just as Salvation, Sanctification, the Holy Spirit, have been made something in themselves, and have become isolated doctrines, separated from their relatedness to all else, and have therefore become abnormal and unbalanced, so has it become with the teaching concerning the Lord's coming again. For a long time this matter fell into abeyance and was neglected or rejected. Then came a real awakening concerning it, and it was given its place again. But, like every swing of the pendulum, it has either taken on abnormalities, or become something in itself. In the one case it does positive harm: in the other it does not do much harm or good at all.

Some of us have lived long enough to outlive many Second Advent theories - not of cranks, extremists, or fanatics (although there have been some of these) but of honest, devout, and otherwise balanced and sound evangelical leaders. How sure some were that the German Kaiser was the Antichrist! How much was published and said by prophetic students that Allenby's entrance into Jerusalem was the end of the times of the Gentiles! Then Hitler took his place in the long line of Antichrists. A well-known evangelical leader travelled to Rome with the express purpose of telling Mussolini that he was the one raised up of God at the end-times to reconstruct the Roman Empire according to prophecy, and Mussolini took it on. Well, what about it all?

We are not dismissing "signs of the times," for there undoubtedly are such, but we do emphasize that the spiritual aspect of things is far safer and more important than the temporal, fascinating as the latter may be. SATAN CAN SIDETRACK AS MUCH BY MEANS OF UNRELATED TRUTH AS BY POSITIVE ERROR.

Before his departure to be with the Lord, a beloved friend and servant of God who had made prophecy his life-long study, and who was well-known as an investigator, wrote to me and said that he had been compelled to change his entire standpoint and much of his interpretation in this whole matter. This is sad, if not tragic! We do need to be on very safe and sure ground.

The Lord's Coming Is Rooted In The Cross

and is the definite outworking as well as the outcome of it.

'Thou art coming; at Thy table
We are witnesses for this.'

The Table, which shows forth His death, links that death with His coming again - "'till He come."

To show that the Cross is the basis of the Blessed Hope would be unnecessary here, but to show how that is so may be important. The reason for this is that so many have not got beyond the idea - an idea never seriously thought out - that the Second Advent is just an isolated event, or an event which, standing in a program or time-table of dispensational movements, will just happen. When the clock strikes twelve the Lord will come. Well, "within His own authority" the Father may have the times and the seasons, but in touching this matter we are confronted with one of those inscrutable ways of God. There are several of them in the Bible. To reconcile freewill and predestination lies with the wisdom of God alone, we cannot do it. In the same way it is beyond our understanding that a certain state which lies with the volition of Christians should synchronize with a fixed point of time for the Lord's coming. Yet it is beyond dispute that in both the above matters the Bible is quite clear and emphatic. The Lord will come at a time definitely known to and fixed by Him, but, on the other hand, the Lord's coming will be just as much a spiritual matter as a chronological one.

It is on this spiritual side of Adventism that the Church and its teachers are so weak. As truly as Abraham's servant, sent to fetch the bride for Isaac, foreshadowed the Holy Spirit's being sent to fetch a bride for Christ, so truly is it a matter of spiritual progress on her part toward Him and the Spirit's showing of His things. Rebekah did not make one sudden leap from Mesopotamia to Canaan. It was a long, exacting and testing journey, and one involving a great exercise of faith. There was the whole question of leaving everything and everyone whose roots were in that land. There was the matter of implicit trust in the servant. There was, no doubt, a temptation more than once to wonder if the end was sure. And there was the constant battle with the reactions arising out of the weariness and the length of the unfamiliar way. But all this had a necessary effect upon this elect bride to both fit her for her great vocation and make the ecstasy of realization all the greater. This is at best a poor figure of the spiritual side of the consummation of union with Christ at His appearing.

The fact is that we are to move just as much toward Him as He to us. The break with all here in a heart way, the leaving of this world spiritually, the occupation with the things of Christ, the patient endurance, and the growth of faith, are indispensable and inseparable factors in relation to His coming and our going on with Him.

Let there be differences of opinion as to the willy-nilly translation of Christians, or as to whether the whole Church will be caught up at Christ's coming; it is not necessary to formulate theories or teachings on such matters. Selectiveness of rapture may or may not be held, but from one thing no one can get away, God has left no room for theories here; a spiritual state of separation, occupation, and expectation is invariably bound up with our being received by Him at His appearing.

In our diagram there are two blue lines, and blue stands for heavenliness. Israel in the wilderness was given a blue token to wear on the border of their garments. This betokened that they were - in God's mind - a heavenly people. They no more belonged to the wilderness than they did to Egypt. It was a place in which to know and prove their heavenliness - heavenly life, resource, guidance, etc. - and it was always pointing to "a heavenly country" which was really their own. But Jordan was the way in, the real point of crossing. And Jordan forever represents the Cross of Christ. As the Red Sea represented what God did for them, so Jordan was the figure of a work consummated in them.

"Ephesians" is the counterpart of "Joshua"; it is "in the heavenlies in Christ," but the Holy Spirit took what was chronologically first - "Thessalonians" - and caused it to be placed after "Ephesians," as much as to say - The Coming of the Lord (the main theme of "Thessalonians") is the outcome of the Church's arrival at its heavenly position.

More will be said on this when we deal with the Church in our next chapter, but here we want to underline the Divine revelation that the Cross separates us from this world, from this "flesh," from Satan's authority, and joins us to Christ, brings us on to heavenly ground, and constitutes us a spiritual people, and it is for such that the Lord will come. When David was driven out of his place by the usurper Absalom and his company, he exercised sublime wisdom and faith by sending back Abiathar with the ark into the city. It was his own foothold there. It was that which would always give him a place, even where he was otherwise repudiated. And to it he would return. It was his hold and his magnet. The Lord will not just return as a matter of course. He will come to and for something. It is a love matter. He will come for His bride, but it has to be mutual. "Them that have loved His appearing." So the Cross is as much a part of the consummation as it is of the initiation, and by its operation in the life as a principle and power the Lord will come for "a people prepared." This preparation relates to heart condition and not to mental apprehension of prophetic truth.

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Chapter 5 - The Cross And The Church

Having dealt with the four intersections on our diagram - the Cross and the Person of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the So Great Salvation, and the Coming Again - we proceed to note that these pass into and through - in the first place - the circle marked the Church which is His Body.

Both in its teaching as to the eternal election of the Church and its present vocation, and also in the actual expression at the beginning of this dispensation, the Bible shows that the FIRST sphere in which all the content and meaning of those four magnitudes finds expression is the Church. It is not our intention to deal with the analysis of each given in the diagram, but a glance at that analysis will do two things. It will show what each of the four means and contains, and it will explain the nature and vocation of the Church.

One thing must be said here, although it should be obvious: these four stand together, and unless they ARE kept as a whole the Church is not the Church of God's intention and purpose. We shall come on this again later.

It is IN and by the Church that God has eternally chosen to reveal the meaning of Christ - the Person of His Son. So also is it there that all the meaning and value of the Holy Spirit is to be embodied. The So Great Salvation is that which constitutes the Church, defining both its nature and its vocation. The coming again of Christ has its primary meaning IN the Church. We repeat, to separate these from their right relation to the Church, to leave the Church out and to take the doctrines apart from it, is to render the doctrines disembodied spirits, with no actual and practical vehicle of demonstration or expression - something in themselves. To have something called the Church which does not EXPRESS these four is to have a misnomer, a falsehood, a body without a spirit or personality, a plastic body without nerves or living expression.

The first main thing to say then is that

The Church Is THE Object Of Divine Concern

in relation to Christ.

In the eternal counsels of the Godhead, when it was determined that the consummate issue of the intended created universe should be the summing up of all things in Christ, it was then decided that an elect Body - called the Church, which is His Body - should be the vessel and vehicle of His fullness, the complement of Him That filleth all in all: nothing less and nothing other than the Church. God has never stopped short at individuals, many or few, as related to Himself. He could have made a thousand Adams as easily as one, but He did not, because one Adam is generic and indicates many in one, the corporate life of many in one. This was the basic principle in Abraham, Jacob, David, Christ. Ignore or violate the corporate and organic principle embodied in the Church, and substitute an institution, an organization, a fraternity, and you make the continuation beyond one generation a matter of the replacement of the worn parts of a machine, and not the reproduction of organic life. What is not the Church in its full Divine concept will only get so far and then live on its past, its tradition, its founder, and its publicity. There have been, and are, many such things which, because of a specific need (to which we refer later), have been blessed of God and cared for by Him, and which have become ministries in themselves within restricted limits. Beyond a certain point of value they are not organically reproductive; they are not sending forth in an ORGANIC way their seed to fully and livingly express the fullness of Christ. There have been so many of these things which, while valuable and owned of the Lord as a needed ministry for the hour, because of His love for them have been presented by Him with His fuller thought. This has represented a definite crisis. The issues have been no less than, on the one hand, adjustment unto enlargement and a new lease of life and value: or, on the other hand, because of unwillingness to see that God needed such changes, a quiet, steady, almost imperceptible loss of the old character and vitality, and either a closing down toward the end of the lifetime of the first instruments, or the formation of a Trust to carry on the work. So often it has become like the tent in Shiloh without the Testimony in it.

The Lord may bless, even raise up, instruments, ministries, to serve a specific purpose, to emphasize or recover a lost value, but there comes a time when He sees that the need has now arisen for the related feature and character to be recognized and accepted, and He sees to it that the light concerning this is present or available. Everything of future increase hangs in the balances of the reaction of those concerned and responsible. God will never ultimately stop short of His full thought - the Church. Herein lies one of the aspects of the relatedness of the Cross to the Church. Only as it is proved that the Cross has produced a true adjustableness and enlargement to all the thought of God can God go on with us INDEFINITELY. It is fatal eventually to have a fixity of mind that because a beginning was so definitely of God it is fixed and will never have to be advanced upon and adjusted to the further things of God. God is not necessarily cancelling anything that has been owned of Him, but He would put it into its larger place. The fact is that, if God is going to have His full thought concerning the Church - even in a comparatively small company - because things are as they are now many adjustments will have to be made. It is no less than a life or death issue, a gain or loss question, and this is decided by the measure in which the meaning of the Cross has really been apprehended. All the tremendous significance of the "ifs" of the New Testament relate to this, not to salvation when the "if" is addressed to Christians.

This necessitates our saying something concerning which the Word of God teaches as to

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What The Church Is

Because of its immense importance to the Lord's eternal purpose concerning His Son, there are few directions in which the great enemy has given himself more assiduously than in this to bring confusion, misapprehension, delusion, illusion, and disruption. The very fact that, on the one hand, the Church bears such evident marks of the Spoiler, and on the other hand, because of the confusion and mess so many true servants of God have turned to other than Church ministry in its full sense, should impress us with the significance of this matter from Satan's viewpoint. Nothing that implies the Church principles of corporate life - oneness, fellowship, and organic relatedness - fails to be the immediate object of Satanic interest and concern, to divide, confuse, and break up, and the devilish factor in it makes it more than just a matter of human disagreement. It is something much more subtle and difficult to deal with than that. The real trouble is not finally cleared up with apologies. In the light of this it is necessary to have some understanding and apprehension as to the true nature of the Church.

Of course, one of the governing things in deciding what the Church is is our standpoint. While the building with a spire or tower is so often called a church - and no one with any spiritual intelligence believes that it is - it will serve as an illustration of a major point. Supposing you saw such a building called a church standing on its spire with its main building right up where the top of the spire usually is, what would you say about it? You would say two things. One: "It is upside down." The other: "It is top heavy." Perhaps you would say: "It is absurd!" But that would entirely depend upon your standpoint. Supposing you were up 10,000 feet in an airplane and viewed it as though the cloud-ceiling was your earth? There it would be right, and IT WOULD BE UPSIDE DOWN IF IN ITS USUAL POSITION HERE. It depends upon whether our standpoint is earthly or heavenly. From the standpoint of the New Testament - which is "in the heavenlies" - the Church as it is now on the earth is upside down. Its main bulk is earthly, and its smallest point is heavenly. I have no doubt that whoever invented the church steeple intended it to indicate that the Church points to heaven, which, of course, is true. But there is this other way of looking at it. Really from God's standpoint the Church has no connection with this world IN THIS DISPENSATION beyond testimony. It is NOT mainly pointing upward, but, being a heavenly thing, is testifying downward. To link the Church with this world at present in any other way is to forfeit all that is really vital to its impact UPON the world. The Church therefore cannot be a national thing, nor can it be international. There is no such thing with God as the Chinese Church, the Indian Church, the American Church, or the English Church. The Church belongs to no country. It can only be the Church IN any country or countries. Nor is the Church composed of all nations or nationalities - Asiatics, Americans, Europeans, etc. There "cannot be Greek and Jew" in the Church. To think and speak and act as though there were is to have failed lamentably to see God's thought as to the Church, and it DOES matter VERY much whether we are right or wrong in this.

In the same way, and belonging to a true apprehension of the Church, we must see that it can never be denominational, interdenominational, nor undenominational as such. A world federation of "churches" would altogether miss the Divine idea, and as lamentably break down in its spiritual value as did the League of Nations; it would be just another spiritual fiasco.

The Church MAY or MAY NOT be found somewhere inside ALL of the above, but it is other than they are.

It will be seen that, so far, we are on a negative line, and this has to be pursued a little further yet. There are sincere people of God who need to be reminded that the Church is not constituted upon some special line or measure of Divine revelation. Light as to the Church or the Body of Christ does not MAKE those who have it the Church. The Church is not made by seeing a FULLER meaning of the Cross or the Body. Important as this is in relation to EXPRESSION it is not basic to the FACT.

There are many other negative factors which affect this issue, but they will be covered as we proceed to the positive side. If we are actuated or influenced by the things as above mentioned, it is because we have not yet, after all, seen Christ.

The Church Is For The Expression Of Christ

Christ - the Son of God, the Son of Man - is not a Jew in His resurrection person and humanity. Neither is He of any other nationality. He is altogether other. What nationality was the first Adam? He was racial. In Christ God has gone back behind all these subsequent distinctions and differences, which the Bible attributes to Satan and rebellion, and He has gone beyond these to the grand issue when oneness will be absolute in every respect - Christ being all and in all actually and universally, as He is NOW where God's mind is concerned. For GOD'S Church there is no ground but the ground of Christ. What is of ourselves by nature, and what is of this present evil world, is not the Church, for the Church is Christ corporately expressed. Spiritual understanding in this matter will result in our ceasing to talk about "the Church of..." or "Such-and-such a Church." It will be absolutely revolutionary in mentality and issue in adjusted phraseology, but quite spontaneously, not pedantically or affectedly.

To have seen Christ as the Holy Spirit would show Him in the New Testament is to see that the Church begins by

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Christ Becoming Resident In Believers

Once Christ is really within as a Resident a union has been established which is organic - in life - and that is Body union. The Lord's Table testifies to this and is for all true believers. That the full light on the Church had not been given in the first days of the Church as in "Acts" is evident, but the fact was there, and they continued "steadfastly in the breaking of bread." (See 1 Corinthians 10:16-17).

But the breaking and distributing of the loaf is never looked upon as making so many more loaves or bodies. It is still one loaf. Christ - though imparted to ten thousand hearts - is not ten thousand Christs, but still one. In this way the Church is Christ.

The growth of the Church is on the same principle. It is the increase of Christ, inwardly and extensively. The Church makes increase as Christ gets more room, or as the measure of Him increases in believers. Its outward growth numerically is just Christ getting into more lives (see Ephesians 4:15-16). The measure of Christ determines whether the Church is strong or weak, great or small, effective or ineffective. But we must not confuse things. Firstly, we must not confuse Christ with systems which have grown up or been formed around Christ or the Church. Then we must not have a mental attitude that because certain believers are in these systems they are not the Church. This can be as divisive in effect as rabid sectarianism. Then we must not confuse the FACT of the Church and the EXPRESSION of it. This is where many trip up, and it is largely a reaction to the deplorable mixture and spiritual poverty of what is called "the Church."

The FACT of the Church and its EXPRESSION are two things. The fact is that all who are in LIVING union with Christ - Who is Head - are the Church. I know that some teachers such as G. H. Pember do not agree with this, and I know all the problems which arise because of the position taken. How many problems would be solved and difficulties got over if we had a sufficient basis for believing that in this dispensation there are two things - the Church AND the rest of believers! We should, for instance, solve the problem of why so few respond to the testimony concerning the Church. But this will not do. The same problem lies behind why so many never make any response at all to Christ.

The expression of the Church, which is more than the fact, demands a recognition of the absolute Headship of Christ - that is, the doctrine lived out by the Holy Spirit. The Epistles did not put believers into a basic relationship with Christ; they revealed what that relationship was and implied, and showed them where they were as to this. It is possible to have a very crippled, emaciated, and unhealthy body, so far as the outward frame is concerned, but it cannot be said that it is not a body at all. This is how it was in the EXPRESSION of the Body at Corinth. Things could hardly have been worse, and if we heard of such a state existing in a local church today we should be sorely tempted to write it off as having no vital relationship with Christ. Paul did not do this with Corinth; but writing to them as to the Church IN Corinth he just sought to show them Christ and the corporate implications of Christ. It amounted to a question as to the absolute Lordship of Christ.

While all is completed in the Ascended Christ, all believers do not know what that "all" is, and therefore may be failing in the expression. The expression is of such value as to involve nothing less than God's eternal purpose and satisfaction; and, as we have said, the utmost wrath of Satan is directed against any ministry which leads to this, or any expression of the Church in spiritual reality. It is no less an issue than Christ coming fully into His place, and Satan having no more room.

It is therefore of utmost importance that there SHOULD be light as to the Church - the Body. Strength or weakness, we repeat, depends upon this. This is

Where The Cross Comes In

Christ cannot come in until man goes out. This applies initially and progressively. There is no place in Christ for the fallen and Satan-produced judgments, thoughts, energies, feelings, etc., of another man. The measure of Christ depends upon the exit of what is not Christ. This has to be faced as a basic and inclusive fact sooner or later, once for all. Then it has to be recognized that conformity to the image of Christ is a life-process, and this life-process goes on on the basis of the Cross. It is not new dyings of Christ, it is not a repetition of the Cross, once, twice, or many times, but it is an outworking of the once-for-all meaning and implications of the Cross. The presence and effect in the Church of what we are naturally is to limit Christ, and therefore to deny the Church, and therefore to counter the Sovereign Headship of Christ, and therefore to make for spiritual weakness, and THEREFORE to put Satan in the place of power. All this is met by the Cross of Christ. Hence, the Altar stands at the threshold of the House; it is the big Altar - a WHOLE burnt offering. The Cross takes its greatness from the immensity of that to which it relates, and makes possible, in the eternal counsels of God.

If what we have said above raises practical questions for any as to relationship and connections, etc., we do not say that you should do this or that - leave this, join that. All that we say is - Look the Cross fully in the face once more, ask the Lord to show you what it means in His fullest thought, let the Lord Jesus be absolutely Head, meet the challenge, and be obedient to what He shows you.

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Chapter 6 - The Cross And The Church (continued)

In our consideration of the Church we have on several occasions used the word "expression," thus noting the difference between the heavenly conception and nature, and the practical application. This latter is of very great importance, and it is here that we find all the reactions of God against declension and failure down the ages. The WHOLE Church on earth may not come to a true and full expression of God's thought as to its nature - it never has since the very first days - but God has never accommodated Himself to this failure and given some intimation that He will be satisfied with whatever He can get. He holds to His full mind, retains the full revelation of it in the New Testament, seeks to have as many in the good of it as will pay the price, and determines SPIRITUAL measure accordingly, while blessing all that He can that contributes to it.

We are therefore bound to say something regarding the expression of the Church in this universe; for we must remember that the Church is more than earthly, it is cosmic. Its accountability extends even now "unto the principalities and powers in the heavenlies" (Eph. 3:10). If, as we have said, the Church is Christ in corporate expression we shall best apprehend this practical aspect of its calling by considering its correspondence to Christ.

Christ Spiritually Expressed

When we turn to see how Christ was here spiritually, we find that it was mainly in terms of three great forces and impacts - Life, Light, Love. Just to say this is, for the average reader of the New Testament, to bring up no small material which bears it out.

"In Him Was Life"

Life is the supreme issue of the Bible, and therefore of creation. The Bible opens with the Tree of Life and it closes with the same. Everything between, as covering the whole history of creation, is focused upon this issue. It is one long continuous conflict concerned with this one question. If the Old Testament is, as Christ said it was, a testifying to Him in all its parts, the issue is found in Christ RISEN, triumphant over death. The Church's preaching in the Book of the "Acts" is little more than a proclamation of the resurrection of the Christ. Thus Christ is the comprehensive and all inclusive embodiment of death's destruction and life victorious. The Church as His Body takes up this testimony, not firstly doctrinally or verbally, but actually and factually. It is intended to be the carry-on of Christ in this respect. Not to historic events nor to New Testament teaching does she first bear her witness, but she is to BE the very embodiment of Christ in terms of life.

There are three ways in which life is manifested.

(1) Life Is Generic

The Divine principle of the creation is biological. Life is the key to everything. When God put life into things He not only set a course in motion which would work itself out apart from outside stimulants and direction, but He introduced the potentialities of perfect development according to the particular kingdom to which the organism belonged - human, animal, vegetable, etc. Life produced after its own kind, but life PRODUCED. The battle for life and of life started when sin entered; but whatever the changes, life still forces on and keeps the creation going. So in the spiritual realm, life is the key to everything, and the only justification for the continuance of this creation. The Church, for which all things are summed up in Christ, takes its origin from His resurrection, and therefore the implanting of His triumphant life. 'She is His new creation,' and He is her new creation life. Her very existence rests upon His risen life. She will eventually be judged by Him Who stands before her and says, "I am... the Living One; and I became dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore." Not sound doctrine alone; not much activity; not a high standard of moral integrity; but life, death-conquering, hell-vanquishing life, will be the test.

(2) Life Is Energic

The driving force of the Church is the power of life. In Ezekiel's vision of the Cherubim and the wheels, a symbol of Christ and the Church, the driving force was the Spirit of life. It is a picture of energy. Going, going, ever going, ceasing not, and straight forward. It is the Living Ones (not "beasts" or "creatures") in corporate expression. It is not difficult to see the correspondence between this as a symbol and the actual spiritual counterpart in the Church at the beginning. Life took charge, or the Spirit as the Spirit of life took charge, and the goings were with much energy. Testimony, evangelism, mutual concern, and many other things betokened life. It was not man-made zest, enthusiasm, emotion, drive, or momentum. It was accounted for by no external stimulant being administered. Such would need to be kept up by outside means, but this was spontaneous and transcended all obstacles.

When we read of "the power that worketh in us," or "working in us that which is well-pleasing," or "His working, which worketh in me mightily," the word in the Greek is "energy," "energizeth," "energizing." It is the energy of Divine LIFE by the Holy Spirit, and is so frequently set over against much human frailty and infirmity, thus constituting a mighty testimony to "the power of His resurrection." There is nothing to account for the persistence and accomplishments of the Church but the supernatural energy of the Divine LIFE in her, and this is the testimony for which she exists. You have to look deeper into the Jesus of Nazareth, the Man of Galilee, for an explanation of His impact upon this world through so long a time, and you will find the secret in the LIFE which was in Him and which He imparts in new birth. In the same way the Church's secret should always be deeper than her outward form; it should be the energy of nothing less than the very LIFE of God in her.

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(3) Life Is Reproductive

This is THE meaning of life. It may mean joy, energy, beauty, and activity, but its essential value and supreme function is reproductiveness. Life demands a way to reproduce after its kind, and any organism which refuses right-of-way to life by denying its facilities for transmission commits a breach of trust. Nowhere is life a possession just to be enjoyed. It is a stewardship to be sacredly fulfilled. That barren fig-tree of Matthew 21 is a parable of an unfulfilled trust; receiving without passing on. Possess life and give it a free course and reproduction is spontaneous. This is not only the statement of a fact, it is a test. The New Testament Church, or the Church in the New Testament, was a spontaneously reproductive Church, without machinery, organization, publicity, propaganda. It propagated itself purely by reason of the life in it. There are many substitutes for Divine life in organized Christianity which explain the slow and hard going, expensive output, and poor quality of results. There is no real substitute for the Church, and the Church expressing Christ as "seeing His seed" in terms of spontaneous reproduction of life. There is something irresistible about life and the most serious consequences are attached to attempts to thwart it. Christ - the Life - is JUST SIMPLY BOUND to come out with a great multitude at the end.

But this life-productiveness is by way of the Cross. The classic Scripture on this is John 12:24. The grain of wheat dies to reproduce itself. Christ Himself brought His Church into being thus. So that corporate expression of Christ is not only by HIS death, but potentially the death of all, and the truly living ones are those who have been "raised together with Him." This is the Church, and the continuation of reproduction is the continuation of the faith acceptance of death and resurrection union with Him, with all that God means by that.

"The Life Was The Light"

In the order of the new creation, that is, of what is spiritual, light follows life; life precedes light. Nicodemus was a man in the dark, groping. Christ said to him, "Except a man be born anew he cannot SEE." Light is the great seeing factor; therefore it means knowing, perceiving, being sure. Inasmuch as it comes through life it must be subjective, inward. The man born blind (John 9) who received his sight is a full scale example or type of this. The touch of Jesus communicated life, vital power. He saw. Then, over against every effort to undermine his faith, to prejudice his mind, he simply answered that he had the goods and that was what really mattered. There was no merely doctrinal argument. It was not a matter of a certain line of teaching or angle of truth. It was Christ in terms of living light. He not only had light on things, he had SIGHT. It was not information ABOUT, but it was apprehension OF!

What a challenge to the Church this is! Christ is not theories, interpretations, doctrines, speculations, information, themes, etc. Christ is the impact of light upon darkness, so that "the darkness overcometh Him not." This is exactly what a corporate expression of Christ is; is, not should be. The Church, when in her true place and relationship to Him, is this. It can be as truly so with her as it was in His own case.

Much could be written regarding the effect of light, but here we are only stating spiritual facts, and leaving it with those concerned to do the measuring up. When the sun shines in its power it is not necessary to discuss theories about light, and if you do, it is only in the nature of explaining something which already exists. Nine-tenths of Christian teaching today has to do with what would follow, obtain, result, if certain things happened; or in explaining what would happen if certain things were observed. There is VERY little call for explaining what is happening, answering the enquiry, "What meaneth this?" with "This is that." And yet it ought to be this way. New Testament doctrine was mainly an explanation of what had happened. It is important as light upon life, but the fact of the Church's being in the place where this life is bringing forth enquiry as to her secret is really where she begins her ministry. So it was on the Day of Pentecost. See what a tantalizing enigma Christ was when here. "Whence hath this Man this wisdom?" Not of the schools, the seats of learning, nor the books, but in fellowship with the Father, under the anointing of the Spirit, He saw what the Father was doing (John 5:19). The Church should be just the same; baffling the unbelieving, defeating the curious, leaving the prejudiced with FACTS, and being light to the true seekers.

But she will have to undergo a deep crucifixion to her own wisdom as to how the work of God is done. There is no light on the death side of the Cross where man by nature is shut out from God. She will have to cry in her blindness, "Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me." This brokenness, helplessness, hopelessness, and yet faith, will betoken her death to every resource but Him Who is the life and the light of man. The Cross governs this whole matter of the Church's testimony to the light.

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The Love Of Christ

It seems hardly necessary to gather up what is in the New Testament to show that, like as Christ was here as the life and light of men, so He was here as the embodiment and expression of the love of God. This is all so well known. In the same way it would be unnecessary to cite the much Scripture which shows that it is by that love that the Church proves Him to have been sent of God (John 17:21).

There are, however, some things in this connection which need fresh emphasis, if not an indicating of their implications. Seeing that we are dealing with the Church and the Cross, we can find all that is necessary in that part of the New Testament where this is brought to its fullest expression. In the Letter to the Ephesians it is most impressively made clear that even

Light Is Based Upon Love

"Ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend..." (3:17-18).

Earlier in the letter we have these words: "having the eyes of your heart enlightened..." (1:18). Then what immense things follow as to be known by the Church! We do not dwell upon them, but upon this fact, that light, knowledge, is the fruit which springs from rooting in love. It would seem that God only gives - but gives abundantly - spiritual knowledge to those whose main characteristic is love. Love for Him, yes! but love for His own and for all men.

"I love the Father" (John 14:31). "The Father loveth the Son and sheweth Him all things..." (John 5:20). So Christ attributed His own knowing all things from the Father to mutual love between them. But Christ was the personal embodiment and manifestation of God's love for the elect and for the world (John 3:16; 17:23). (See also Eph. 5:25) John is known as the Apostle of love. What a wealth of spiritual light has come to us through him! Paul was behind no one in this matter of Divine love and has given us the classic of all time as to it (1 Cor. 13). What fullness and depths of revelation the Church owes to him!

A scientist may describe a tear in terms of water, salt, and mucus, but the mother or lover UNDERSTANDS it in terms of its real meaning. A head knowledge is no knowledge at all in spiritual values. Only the knowledge which comes through the heart - travail, suffering, longing, heart-break over souls, toward the Lord - is vital knowledge. How much of the wealth of knowledge possessed by John, Paul, and others came out of their heart travail for the Church? Take that out, and there is not much left.

Love Buildeth Up

"...The increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love" (Ephesians 4:16).

You might not have thought of that when considering the material for building the Church. Truth, yes! Teaching, yes! Knowledge, yes! But the Holy Spirit singles out LOVE for the main emphasis. Ephesus evidently stood for something in the matter of spiritual values. The fact that the Holy Spirit was so unrestrained in giving such light, light exceeding anything else in the whole Bible, is a fairly good proof of capacity. How well we know that when we minister in the Spirit we have liberty or restraint governed by the spiritual capacity of our hearers. We would often go further, but we just cannot. It comes back at us. At other times or places we can go all the way. Paul was just caught away with superlatives which piled themselves one upon another when he wrote that letter. The longest sentence without a full period in the Bible is found there. He could not stop for the rules and regulations of punctuation. Surely the explanation of this release of the Lord is found in His address to Ephesus in the Revelation (2:4) "Thou didst leave thy first love." "Thy first love." There must have been something very precious to the Lord at the beginnings of the church in Ephesus. It is like the cry and sob of a broken-hearted lover, whose love moves into jealousy and heat against the detractor and the unfaithfulness. He sees the triumph of the "god of this world" in blinding the mind, and is angry with Ephesus for complicity with him. Well, much, very much, can be added on this matter, but enough! Remember that the way in which the Church will be built inwardly and outwardly will not be alone by meetings, conferences, addresses, teaching, nor by campaigns, but by the bathing of all in love, and sometimes just pure love without lectures.

But - and is it necessary to say it? - this love is the fruit of a deeply crucified life. It is only in a true and adequate apprehension and appreciation of the Cross that the heart is enlarged to ALL men. 'Love to the loveless.' It is only as the Cross has struck deeply at the roots of pride, personal interest, ambition, reputation, selfishness, and concern for something less than the whole purpose of God, that God will really build His Church. The Church is the Lamb's WIFE. It is a LOVE matter! These two are one. She takes her very object in life from Him. She leaves all personal and former interests and relationships, and they two become one flesh.

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Chapter 7 - The Cross And The Nations

Having seen that the first sphere in which the Cross has its expression in its various relationships is the Church, we now come to its place in the nations of the world. It must be recognized at the outset that, in the intention of God, the Cross does not pass THROUGH the Church to the nations, but takes the Church with it there. It is not the Cross in the nations as something preached apart from the Church, but the Church in the nations as the embodiment of the Cross. This cannot be represented in one diagram, therefore it has to be stated.

It is true that the Apostles preached among the nations Christ crucified and risen, but as a rule and a principle they did not do this single handed. The Lord's principle of a minimum of two was adhered to as closely and continuously as possible, and on the few occasions when an Apostle was isolated and alone there was usually hold up and threat either to ministry or life. This corporate principle of going forth as on "Body" ground, with the Church behind, and the Church implied in more than one being together, indicated that the Lord's required means is that which represents Christ corporate. Two is regarded in the Bible as the number which implies adequate testimony. This is easily verifiable by a glance at the way in which two were joined by God so frequently, and that "in the mouth of two witnesses" everything shall be established. Now, then, the Lord had said "this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world FOR A TESTIMONY... and then... the end...." The Church is the vessel of witness or testimony, hence the minimum is two. The principle is to have a corporate expression or representation of Christ in every nation. The deepest meaning of "evangelize" is to bring to, not only to proclaim. It is inherent in the Word, and it means - to bring Christ to the nations. "This good news of the realm and reign (of God through Christ) must be set in the nations for a testimony"; that would be the meaning of the statement. It is in keeping with all the fundamental principles of Divine revelation.

(1) "The Earth Is The Lord's"

But the earth has become overrun and possessed by that which is inimical to God. He has been driven out, and a usurper has occupied the throne here. That is both stated and illustrated many times in Scripture.

After the flood, when the earth appeared as a purged and renewed thing, Noah and the nucleus of that new creation built an altar and consecrated the earth to God in that way; in effect saying, "The earth is the Lord's." The testimony was locally represented; a universal right locally established in a corporate company by what symbolized the Cross. When David was driven from his rightful place by the usurper Absalom, he sent Zadok back with the ark. Zadok and Abiathar were there with the testimony to the fact that David's rightful place was THERE, where the testimony was. The Church, with the testimony of Jesus, is to be representatively holding the earth for its rightful Lord.

(2) "All Things Have Been Created... Unto Him''

The nations are Christ's inheritance. "Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession." The Church is the company in which Christ is establishing His right by taking an earnest of the inheritance. The nations may not be saved in this dispensation, but they will yield a token, and in that "people out of the nations for His name" (Acts 15:14) they declare that all is His by right. It is something, even if there are no mass movements, just to hold the ground for Christ. This will indicate the place of the Cross, for it was by the Cross that He cast out the prince of this world. It was by the Cross that He established His moral right to it. It was because of the Cross that He was given "all authority in heaven and on earth," and received "the name which is above every name." Only in the virtue of Calvary's triumph shall we be able to hold our ground in this sin - and devil - ridden world.

Then, if this is true and the corporate principle is the effectual one, the one object of Satan, in order to frustrate the end and spoil the testimony, will be to break up the corporate life. Satan will never stop until he has done all that he can to divide the last two who are spiritually related in the testimony of Jesus. This will necessitate a deep work of the Cross in those concerned, so that "the prince of this world will have nothing in them." Humility, meekness, self-emptying, and deep devotion to the Lord's honor are fruits of the Cross. We cannot meet and counter Satan with doctrine, technique, phraseology and slogans about Satan being a defeated foe. He must meet crucified men and women who have given Christ a lot of room. You will see the corporate action of the Church in the Book of the Acts. A 'Church' in the nations which is not crucified to the world is a help to Satan, but a crucified company is a great menace to his kingdom.

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Chapter 8 - The Cross And The Satanic Kingdom

Following closely upon what we said at the end of our last chapter, we come to the place and meaning of the Cross in the realm of principalities and powers, world rulers of this darkness, and hosts of evil spirits in the heavenlies (Eph. 6:12).

Again, we must bear in mind that it is in and by the Church that the Cross has its registration in that realm. It is always a dangerous thing for units of the Church, i.e., individuals, to assail that kingdom, or enter it with intent to upset it. Christ alone can meet that, or to Him only as its conqueror will it yield, and, we repeat, Christ is implied by the corporate means. There is much spiritual history, both glorious and tragic, bound up with this principle, its observance or its neglect or violation. The whole matter of Headship is involved in this. Headship has never been relegated or delegated by the Lord to any individual. Autocracy or individual domination in the Church is a positive violation of the Church's major principle - the Sovereign Headship of Christ. Hence 'the oversight' in the New Testament was always plural, never singular; elders, not an elder. In so far as authority was concerned it was corporate, not individual.

This does not mean that New Testament technique rigidly adhered to will result in a mighty impact of Christ's Headship of all principalities and powers. History proves otherwise. But this failure does not prove the principle to be false, it only shows that it is more technique than SPIRITUAL position.

But to come to our main subject of which such points are but the outworking, the inclusive thing about which we must be quite clear is that the ultimate place of the Cross is in that realm from which the Cross takes its original rise. The Cross is set at the very heart of

A Cosmic Struggle For The Mastery Of The Creation

We use the word Cosmic in the sense of super-earthly. It embraces the earth, the heavenlies around the earth, and beyond. Here we find ourselves outside of time in eternity, outside of the local in the universal. There is an aspect of the Cross which is beyond atonement. Atonement has to do firstly with time and this world. It relates to man's sin and reprobation. But atonement is not for Satan and "the angels that kept not their own principality" (Jude 6). The last thing that the Bible says about the former is that he is cast into the lake of fire "unto the ages of the ages" (Rev. 20:10). (The same phrase is used of the glory of God in the Church [Eph. 3:21]. The one is the counterpart of the other, and must be of the same duration.) Of the fallen angels it is said that they are "kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day" (Jude 6) and "cast down to hell... to pits (or chains) of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment" (not salvation) (2 Pet. 2:4).

When we speak of a cosmic struggle for the mastery of creation, some might find it difficult to contemplate the infinite, almighty, eternal God involved in a struggle, as though He could not, with a word, a stroke of His hand, wipe out of existence everything that gets in His way. To overcome this mental difficulty, we must remember that the creation rests upon a moral foundation. In creation God has bound Himself to moral conditions, and has therefore brought Himself to the place where His authority operates only on moral grounds. He intervenes FOR SALVATION only when He has the ground which is in accord with His own moral nature. If the ground is positively and incorrigibly antagonistic to His moral nature, His interventions have been, and will be, unto judgment and destruction. Justification by faith has its place here in that God has provided or secured the ground of His own moral perfection in His Son, Jesus Christ, and that ground is provided for faith in Him. Persistent and final rejection of Christ and God's righteousness in Him puts those concerned into another realm, to which the Apostle Paul referred when he said "Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men" (2 Cor. 5:11). (This word "fear" is strong; really - 'to terrify.') Just as God must have suitable ground for the beneficent exercise of His authority and power, so must Satan have ground suitable to his nature to exercise his authority. Take God's ground from Him and He cannot work for you. Give Him His ground, and He moves. All the meaning of POWER THROUGH SANCTIFICATION lies here. "He did not many mighty works... because of their unbelief." Likewise, give Satan HIS ground and his authority is established. Take his ground away and he is helpless. Hence his one object, in order to establish his kingdom, is to corrupt, for then he knows that God cannot save; it is a moral issue. So the battle is waged, not between two potentates on official and personal grounds, but between two moral orders represented by two lords, of righteousness and unrighteousness respectively.

It is in this direction that the Cross goes beyond atonement and puts the Church in the strong position of moral and spiritual authority in the realm where the evil forces have their seat. 'By the Cross He conquered.' That was because the Cross took Satan's moral ground from him.

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The Church is a heavenly Body; which means that it is out of Satan's domain spiritually and morally. "Delivered... out of the AUTHORITY of darkness, and translated... into the kingdom of the Son of His love" (Col. 1:13). For its spiritual authority the Church MUST stand in all the good of the Cross as a separating and sanctifying power. Satan's one aim is to corrupt the Church. The wrestling against principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12) is not physical, it is not to OBTAIN a position of ascendancy, it is against the "WILES of the devil." These wiles are twofold; to obtain a lodgment for darts of accusation - that is a denial of our justification and righteousness by faith: and, or, to corrupt and seduce on to earthly, carnal, and unholy ground. This explains the spiritual and moral nature of the armour provided.

The Church does not carry the Gospel of salvation and atonement to the kingdom of Satan itself, but only to those who are his prisoners, to give them the option of deliverance or remaining with him. To the evil powers the Church stands to express the moral Lordship of Jesus Christ in virtue of His Cross, and to exercise that authority in virtue of its own standing in Him.

The position is this. Before the world was, God purposed to gather under one Head all the creation. That Head was His Son. It was irrevocably and unalterably settled in the eternal counsels. Knowing that it could never be its best by mere compulsion or as a mechanical order and that faith, love, and positive holiness (not passive innocence) were essential to that best, and foreseeing the advent of evil, a working of a subversive system, He provided against the ultimate triumph of the system in "the Lamb slain from the foundation (literally the laying down) of the world." All that was foreseen, and the Lamb came out of eternity into time, was literally - not potentially - slain, the ground of evil power was taken in that slaying, and the link-up renewed with the original purpose - "all things in Christ." The Church - the elect Body - was brought into being on the ground of the Cross. He was given to be "Head over ALL THINGS TO (not merely OF) the Church which is His Body, the fullness of Him That filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23). The Church moved out and registered His rights behind the temporal and sentient world, in the spiritual kingdom of Satan, and it worked! - until the Church declined from its spiritual and heavenly position. The Cross is still the moral battle-axe of the Church, and the evil system can still feel its overthrowing power. It rests with the Church to adjust to

1. The meaning of the Cross;

2. The place into which the Cross puts the Church;

3. Positive aggression in its whole armour.

Our object has not been to deal at any length with the connected matters. Each one of them could easily fill a book to itself. We have aimed at indicating the place which the Cross has in all things related to God's eternal and universal purpose in Christ.

There remains but one realm indicated on our diagram. But before we pass to consider that, we would add something to this chapter with the object of doubly emphasizing that power is a matter of position.

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Position And Power

Undoubtedly the word which occurs most often in religious - and especially evangelical - circles today is the word "power." In addresses and prayers it is the keynote from which and to which there is constant movement. All the world over it is the same.

Listening to speakers and prayers in languages with which one is not conversant, a certain word occurs with almost monotonous reiteration, and on inquiry one is not surprised to learn that it is this word. The absence of power and the necessity for it is betrayed or confessed in many ways; not only directly and humbly by the more spiritually minded among God's people, but by the loud display of ingenious resourcefulness in advertisement, "stunts," organization, drives, etc., which are a more sad giving-away of the case than what is meant to be implied by them, viz.: - that there is no life.

We do not intend to embark upon a consideration of this subject in general from all of its angles, but to deal with one basic thing, more basic even than the reception of the Holy Spirit. The matter is very rarely dealt with in relation to the Holy Spirit, and certainly no treatise can be anything like complete otherwise. The Master made it very clear that before there could be a Pentecost there were certain very deep and vital things to transpire. Pentecost was to be very truly an effect, and not only a cause; the end of much as well as a beginning; a seal and not only a pledge. Before there could be the counterpart of Christ's Jordan anointing upon the members of His Body, the Church, there must of necessity have been a baptism into His death, a union with Him in the entombment of the "body of sin." His death had meant the closing of the door upon the old creation; the first Adam had been dealt with and effectually relegated to the place where he would no longer have any consideration or acceptance from God, being reckoned as dead, and only the inclusive "last Adam" would receive the fullness of God. In the day of the anointing of the servants of God of old, very definite and explicit instructions were given in relation to the anointing oil. This holy oil was in no wise to come upon man's flesh and there was to be no attempt to make anything like it.

The oil is always a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and the "flesh" a type of the old fallen nature of "Adam." God strictly refuses that the Holy Spirit should come upon uncrucified men and women. "Becoming conformed unto His death" is the only path to power. All our motives in seeking power will be tested by fire. Are we seeking personal influence, popularity, reputation, prestige, acceptableness, success, demonstrations, something of a kingdom of this world? We may think our motive to be perfectly pure; but not until we pass into death, death to any or all of the above, and find ourselves "despised and rejected of men," our names cast out as evil, and a real hold-up (seemingly) of our work, do we really come to face the real purpose and motive of our having any place in the work of God. The death or eclipse of everything within and without is a good test. Many of the men of God who have been TRULY used by Him have gone this way. Not upon our flesh - whether it be the gross flesh or the refined, soulish, educated flesh - will God allow His Spirit to come. Before there can be a Pentecost there must have been a Calvary. Before there can be the fire of God there must be an altar and a sacrifice; and it must be the BURNT offering, in which everything is consumed. Undoubtedly the disciples of our Lord went through the death of everything of ambition, expectation, vision, self-confidence, etc., when their Master was crucified, and then they tasted deeply of that death which was to govern them all the days which were to be. Their views, ideas, "convictions," methods, scales of values, standards of judgment, dispositions, temperaments, personal influence and every part of their life, came under this government, and in every deeper baptism into death they were raised more fully into His life - not their own. Each experience was more critical and crucial and devastating than the last, and doubtless they sometimes wondered if there would be anything at all left; but so the life was becoming more abundant. See for example Acts 10, and 2 Cor. 1:8-10, etc.

This was and is the initial position which alone means power, and any seeming power which is not resultant from the deep death of the natural life of the individual or community is a making of oil like unto the true but which is not the true, and therefore in the deepest sense is not the anointing of God. But there is a further element in this matter of position. In the world and the flesh Satan had judicial rights. These judicial rights and the ground of Satan's claim Christ came to deal with; to destroy the ground and to possess Himself of the rights. In the light and the power of His Cross - which He had accepted at His baptism - and on the ground of His predestined position as the God-chosen "Prince of this world," Christ possessed a mystic authority which was recognized in every sphere and always set over against another authority. The Greek word exousia, translated in the A.V. "power" and in the R.V. "authority," would be more accurately translated "jurisdiction." See the recognition of this superior jurisdiction, for instance, in Matthew 7:29, where it is set over against that of the scribes; in Matthew 8:9, where it is above that of the Roman Empire behind the Centurion; in Matthew 21:23, where the Pharisees betray their recognition of this mystic thing. The ninety-four occurrences of this word in the New Testament are very illuminating. Satan claimed the jurisdiction of the world, (Luke 4:6). Christ did not deny his claim then, but went to the Cross crying, "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out"; and having dealt with Satan and all the ground of his claim, Christ rose triumphant saying, "All jurisdiction has just been given to Me in the heavens and on earth; for this reason go YE into the whole world and proclaim the good news" (Matt. 28:18-19, Literal Translation).

In the light of this triumph and because He held this position in Himself He had said to His disciples, "Behold I have given you jurisdiction... over all the power (dunamis - driving force) of the enemy" (Luke 10:19). After His having possessed Himself of this jurisdiction on behalf of the race as He possessed it in Himself as the Son of God - He promises them that they shall receive power (dunamis - driving force) when the Holy Spirit is come upon them (Acts. 1:. There can never be "dunamis" until there is "exousia," that is, there can never be driving force until there is POSITION.

God will only put His power behind those who are in the authoritative position, and none are there who have not been incorporated into Christ in death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and reign, and this as a present SPIRITUAL experience. The jurisdiction of Christ through His Cross has to function through the members of His Body in concert. Christ has the jurisdiction, we are incorporated into Him if we have on all points accepted and claimed our identification with Him, and thus we have become the instruments of that authority over the driving-power of the enemy in every sphere where His victory is not recognized. By a life in the Spirit we are able to receive by discernment those indications from above - the "Head" - and then command the situation and put the enemy's work out of action. The word "destroy" in the New Testament means "put out of action," and this is related to "the works of the devil," and progressively wrought out on the ground of Calvary by "the Church, which is His Body." This is not vulgar exorcism, for it can only be effectual as the Holy Spirit takes the initiative in us and through us, and we must know His "energizing." Undoubtedly it was their absolute union with their victorious Lord, and the recognition of their judicial authority - not over men but over Satan and his kingdom - which was the ground of the Holy Spirit's seal and anointing of the Apostles and first believers. Galatians 2:20 is forever the key to the situation.

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Chapter 9 - The Cross And The "Far Above All" Heavenlies

Perhaps one of the most mysterious statements in the Bible is that made by Paul in the "Ephesian Letter" (3:10) that "how unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenlies might be made known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God."

At least it implies that the Apostle had been given a very special revelation, for this is one of the things that could never be arrived at by study, reasoning or deduction. What it all means we do not know, but we can see something.

Firstly, we find it difficult to believe that these principalities and powers are the same as those mentioned in Ephesians 6. Why the Lord should want to display His manifold wisdom to the evil powers would indeed be hard to understand. If His all-governing object is the expression and diffusion of His glory in the universe so that worship comes back to Him in adoration, wonder, and amazed rejoicing, then we have the clue to this statement. The Church here is represented as seated together with Christ in the heavenlies, not in the realm of the evil powers, but above them, amongst the angelic hosts. There, intelligences having absolute confidence in the wisdom and ability of God are nevertheless capable of being instructed and learning. They are aware of the unspeakably great and immense problems that have arisen through Satan's interference and man's complicity with him - the problems of man's disrupted and twisted nature; of the resultant power of Satan over him and man's own utter helplessness; the problem of sin, enmity, hatred, pride, selfishness, warfare, death, etc. It is like a mountainous argument built up for God to answer. They are sure that He can do it, but there is breathless suspense as to HOW He will do it. They behold the Church as the vessel in which He will give the answer. The components of the Church are humanly as manifold and diverse in dispositions, temperaments, natures, and propensities as there are persons. In them by nature are found all the results and effects of the Fall. Then GRACE gets to work; calls them, chooses them, saves them, sanctifies them, and changes them so that they go altogether "contrary to nature." They no longer do what they used to do. They do what they never would have done. This is operating and developing every day. Grace, grace, grace! The word occurs a dozen times in "Ephesians," and its glorious issue is that "in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace... toward us in Christ Jesus" (2:7). So the Church and its members pass into every kind of trial and testing - persecution, reproach, adversity, sorrow, loneliness, disappointment, physical suffering, frustration, etc. - and the reactions through the grace of God are quite other than they would be apart from it.

There, where things are known for their eternal value and right meaning, this "manifold wisdom of God" is causing principalities and powers to worship and glorify God. And because the Church serves Him in this way it is destined to share His glory, and come down "out of heaven... having the glory of God." It can be easily seen how the Cross relates to this. Initially it secures for God the vessel. Progressively as a principle it empowers to put aside all that works against His glory. The Cross lies at the heart of every disappointment triumphantly borne, and every adversity meekly endured.

Because of the great solution which the Cross is to the problem which has filled the universe, angels and archangels and all the host of heaven adore Him Who thought of it - Whose unsearchable wisdom found expression in "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2).

The End

Up next, The Church - Its Nature, Principles and Vocation

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The Church - Its Nature, Principles and Vocation
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1

Next to the Person of Jesus Christ the Church has been, and continues to be, the great battleground of history. So much so is this the case that an ever-increasing number of books, journals, periodicals, 'Councils', 'Convocations', discourses, etc., are occupied with this matter as a primary concern. But most of all this is CONTROVERSIAL, thus justifying the phrase 'the battleground'. This is all very significant, indicating that it is a primary matter, and that it is something which does hold a position in the forefront of accountability. Rightly it does, and perhaps much more so than ALL this writing and talking understands. It is a primary concern in the whole cosmic realm, the super-mundane sphere, if we are to take both the practical evidence and the definite New Testament statements seriously. For instance, the whole letter to the Ephesians, and particularly 3:10 and 6:12.

It may seem to be arrogant and ambitious for us, who, being of such little account in ourselves, and by the medium of such an insignificant a means as this little paper, to think that we can handle this immense matter to any advantage. Having had this as a primary concern for so many years, and having seen the Church and the churches in so very many places from Far East to Far West, with much prayer exercise over it, perhaps we may be given something to say which throws some light into the shadows or darkness of the immense confusion which exists in relation to the Church. We are especially concerned with the matter of local-assembly expressions of the Church, for only there can the real meaning of the Church be brought to immediacy.

We have to begin by asking the question which includes everything else, and which really expresses the problem in many minds:

CAN WE NOW ACCEPT THE POSSIBILITY OF TRUE LOCAL EXPRESSIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH?

This question - and there is not a little, but very much, to give rise to it - has, because of its acuteness, received many answers, or has been attacked in many ways. Some of these are as follows:

1. A large section of Christians have answered definitely 'NO', and they base this upon what they term 'the total ruin' position. They say that the Church is in unredeemable ruins, and therefore a corporate expression is no longer possible. Of course, they especially relate this to the Church universal, but they bring it very close by arguing that at the end-time everything will be individual. The basis of this is that in Revelation 2-3, where the Lord directs His address "to HIM that overcometh". Well, that is argument No. 1.

2. Then there are those whose answer is that the only possibility now is an approximate expression of the Church. That is, there can be no full and complete expression, but something comparative, provisional, and partial. There can be SOME features, and we must build upon SOME things which we perceive to be in the New Testament. In large instances the major denominations represent this position. Presbyterians base their whole position upon one interpretation of New Testament Church order, as they conceive it. The same is true of Lutherans, Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, 'Brethren', etc. For each and all of these the term 'Church' is employed. But it is a concept which is a convenient solution to the problem namely, a partial approximation.

3. Then, there is the answer which is expressed by what is called 'Sublimation'. That is, that the Church is a sublime conception and idea. It is idealistic, and we must live in the abstract realm of a sublime conception and not try to bring that 'down to earth', be too practical and demanding in reality. This answer and interpretation is expressed in the term 'The Church Mystical': but not practical.

4. There are those who have written off the whole idea of Church, either as impossible or unnecessary. They are definitely Christian Institutions and organizations, but not a Church or churches. To this category belong the Quakers, the Salvation Army, and a vast number of mission halls, and 'Missions'.

5. Finally for our purpose, there are those whose answer is a very positive one! Yes, we must return to the New Testament pattern 'and have New Testament churches'! They believe that the New Testament contains a definite 'blue print' for local churches, and they are committed to 'FORMING' such wherever possible. Unfortunately, they vary very much as to teachings, emphases, and practices, and some of them are characterized by excesses, abnormalities and exclusiveness.

Well, what are we going to say to all this?

As we see it, all are MORE OR LESS wrong or right (we underline 'more or less', but we would say that some are totally wrong), because the TRUE nature of the Church has been either lost or lost sight of.

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The History of Israel

The history of Israel has a lot of light to throw upon this matter of the Church. Historic Israel was constituted upon the same eternal PRINCIPLES as the Christian Church. Indeed, they were called "the church in the wilderness" (Acts 7:38), and they were termed God's elect. They were intended to represent in time on the earth an ETERNAL and HEAVENLY concept. In types and symbols to figuratively and temporally embody spiritual principles and Divine thoughts. For our purpose here we have to narrow this all down to the main principles involved in their history. We divide that history into two phases. The one before, and leading to, the captivity in Babylon the seventy years. The reason for that captivity was purely and definitely idolatry. The captivity dealt with that, and after that there was no more idolatry OF THE SAME KIND in Israel. But then came - and still exists - the second, and both worse and longer, phase of judgment. This is revealed in the second aspect of the ministry of the Prophets. It is obvious that the Prophets prophesied in relation to the immediate future of the Babylonish and Assyrian captivity, and also in relation to a time further on. This second aspect is often taken up in the New Testament and applied - or shown to apply - to those times and events, with the extra feature that post-New Testament times (unto our day) were visualized. But why this second and longer and more terrible relegation to judgment? Why Israel's confusion, weakness, and loss of the IMMEDIATE presence and power of God, and only His sovereignty BEHIND their history? The answer is in one phrase - "spiritual blindness". "Blindness has happened to Israel" (Romans 11:25). There is a great deal about this in the Gospels, and both the teaching and miracles of Jesus were directed to and against this blindness. The giving sight to the blind was a testimony TO ISRAEL, as well as to the world. This blindness, however, was particularly related to the Person, the significance, and the purpose of Christ. That intervention in history was a mission to redeem, recover, and reestablish that ETERNAL concept in the heart of God, which was as 'the mystery' in Israel: that is, the SPIRITUAL principles and meanings HIDDEN in their temporal election and constitution, and to embody it all in a Person who was to be reproduced by the Church, as the Corn of Wheat, through death, being reproduced in resurrection in a corporate body.

There we have touched the very heart of the true nature of the Church. The touchstone of the Church is a SEEING by Divine - supernatural - Holy Spirit revelation and illumination the real significance and meaning of Jesus Christ and His mission. It is so evident that the great Apostle of 'the Mystery' - the Church, came to his knowledge and understanding of the true Church by way of the revelation of Christ to, and in, him (Galatians 1:16).

To truly see Christ is to see the Church, and only so can there be a true church. It was when the Lord was able to say of Peter that 'flesh and blood had not revealed the truth of His (Christ's) Person' that Christ immediately made the first definite announcement about the Church: "Upon this rock will I build my church." This all means, that fundamentally, a true expression of the Church, locally, is not more, nor less, nor other, than the spiritual apprehension of Christ by believers. The Church, local or universal, is not traditional. That would make it second-hand and therefore artificial. The Church cannot be seen through other people's eyes, whether those others be of the past (Apostles, etc.) or present (teachers).

We have known people to live in the presence of the teaching for years, and rejoice in it, repeat it, eventually to prove that they had not really seen with their own spiritual eyes by contradicting and discarding it all too easily. They had seen it mentally through the eyes of someone else - the teacher or preacher. When Paul SAW, it effected something in him that became himself, and no amount or form of suffering and outward disappointment could make him depart from the "heavenly vision". We repeat, that all of his rich and full understanding of the Church did not come, in the first place, from a revelation of some thing called 'the Church', but from a seeing of Christ as in the eternal councils of God. As the very foundation this answers the five points which we earlier mentioned, and answers them comprehensively. Can there be local expression of the Church? Yes, given that such a seeing and apprehension of Christ is present, and we must dismiss the Holy Spirit and His work if we say that such a seeing is not possible now (Ephesians 1:17-18).

But having made the statement, it is necessary to say more as to the essential PRINCIPLES of a local church as a microcosm of the Church universal.

The first (included in what we have said above) and the most difficult to explain, although not to experience, is in that misunderstood, disliked, and frowned-upon word - spirituality. It should not be difficult to understand, because any and every true born-anew believer knows that there is something about him or her that is not just natural. A change in mentality, disposition, concept, gravitation has taken place in them. They are just different since the new birth took place. (We are talking nonsense about the Church if this fundamental change has not been effected.) But we still have to define spirituality.

As a word and an idea, spirituality is not peculiar to the Bible and to Christians. The world uses it. For instance, in visiting a picture gallery, some pictures are looked at and the viewer passes on. But another picture holds the attention, for there is something more than canvas, paint, and an object depicted. That picture has an "atmosphere" about it: it touches the emotions; it stirs a sense of wonder; it is not just something in itself. There is something more about it than itself. The remark about that something is that there is something 'spiritual' about it. The same thing can be said about a song; the execution of a piece of music; an ornate and beautiful building; a form of service; and so on. This is what the world calls the spiritual. But what they really mean is mysticism. This can be particularly found in literature, and there is a category of writers known as 'the Mystics'. Religion is a special realm of mysticism. Let us say at once, and with emphasis, that mysticism and true spirituality, according to the Bible, are two entirely different things. They belong to two different realms. The one is temperamental, or a matter of temperament. It has its degrees. The simple response to beauty and emotion: or in more intense forms it can be psychic, fanatical. It can be induced by pathetic or tragic appeals. It can be worked up to excitability and paroxysms by repetitions - as of choruses and incantations. Thus, either mildly or extravagantly, AN EXTRA ELEMENT can appear or give character. Religion lends itself peculiarly to the mystical in these various forms and degrees.

But the spirituality of the Bible of which we are speaking is different. It is the result of a new birth by the Holy Spirit. It represents A CHANGE OF NATURE and constitution, not the release and intensification of what is already there. Indeed, it is an "altogether other", just as Christ was - in the deepest reality of His person - an altogether other. In that 'other' He was not known, understood, and explicable. He was inscrutable. Not just mysterious, but of another order. There was another intelligence and consciousness. There was another capacity and ability. There was another relationship. This is all true of the individual believer by reason of being "born from above". (See John 1:13, 3:6-7 margin) The Church is the aggregate of SUCH believers, in which what was true of Christ is true of it - deity apart.

He and it are the spiritual MEANING of all symbols, and He definitely said that with His coming the old order of material, symbolical representations had entirely given place to that which they represented. It was no longer things to REPRESENT, but that which they represented WITHOUT THE THINGS (see John 4:20-24) and note that John's Gospel and the Letter to the Hebrews are two great documents of the great transition from the historic, the temporal, the tangible, to the spiritual. The Apostles were moved by the Holy Spirit into that transition. It cost them travail to be so born again, but they got through by Divine energy.

So spirituality, which is a heavenly other nature and endowment, is the first basic principle of the Church. Let us repeat that the Church is the vessel and embodiment of "the mystery" so often referred to in the New Testament, especially by Paul, and the mystery WAS and is the hidden MEANING of things, and of Israel, but which mystery is now revealed to and in the new order, the new Israel, the Church. The "mystery of Christ" is the meaning of Christ, inscrutable to all but those who have "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him" (italics ours).

Our space is gone, so we must continue later. There is much more to say.