Books by T. Austin-Sparks

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Chapter 6 - In His Letter to the Colossians

As we come to this letter to the Colossians, by way of laying a foundation we will read some verses from the matchless first chapter.

"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray and make request for you, that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning;, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell; and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens" (Col. 1:9-20).

Now, that forms quite a good foundation for speaking about the gospel - and do note that that is the gospel. All that is what Paul calls the 'good news'. It is the thing that Paul preached - "the gospel which I preach". In this letter, that word occurs not so many times as in other letters, but with a peculiar point. It occurs in this first chapter, verse 5: "...because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel"; and then in verse 21: "...if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, which was" - and here is the same word in the verb form - "preached in all creation under heaven" - "which was 'gospelled', ' good newsed', in all creation under heaven".

Good Tidings in an Emergency Situation

Now, if anything is to be good news, or good tidings, if it is to have a really keen edge to it, there must be a situation for which it brings relief, assurance, comfort or gratification. If it does not matter, then it is not good news. For example, supposing someone, with whom your life and heart are closely bound up, lies in a very serious and critical illness, and you call in medical help. You are under a great burden of anxiety: it matters very much to you which way it goes; and you wait for what seems an eternity for the doctor to come down and give you a report. When he comes down and says, 'It is all right, you need not worry; things are going all right, they will come through', that is good news indeed. It has an edge on it, because your heart is bound up with this matter. If there is a great decision in the balances, which is going to affect in some way your future, your career, your life, and a committee is sitting on it, and you are waiting outside with your heart, as we say, in your mouth, feeling most anxious as to how it is going: when someone comes out and says, 'All right, you have got the job, the appointment', that is good news. It brings to you an immense sense of relief. If there is a battle on, the issue of which will be serious for all concerned, and someone comes back from the scene of the fighting, and says 'It is going well, it is all right, we are going to get through!' - why, it is a tremendous relief. That is good tidings. It touches us, it means something to us. There has to be something in the nature of an emergency situation really to give point to good news.

The Emergency Situation at Colossae

Now, in the case of almost all Paul's letters, there was an emergency situation. Something had arisen in the nature of a threat to the Christian life of those with whom his heart was closely bound up; something had arisen which was causing many of those Christians real concern, worry and anxiety. They were in real difficulty; the future seemed to be in doubt. It was in order to meet such emergencies as these that Paul wrote his letters, and in them all he uses this word 'gospel', or 'good news' - good news for an emergency, good tidings for this critical situation.

In this letter to the Colossians it is peculiarly so. There was a real emergency on amongst the believers at Colossae. But it was the same emergency which takes different forms at different times - it is present today in its own form. What it amounted to was this: that there were certain people, considering themselves to be very knowledgeable, wise, intelligent, learned people, who had been dipping into a lot of mysterious stuff, and they were bringing their high-sounding ideas and theories to bear upon these Christians. It all had to do with the great magnitudes of life.

First of all, there was no less a matter in view than the very meaning of the created universe. Now that might be, of course, a realm for philosophical speculation; but you know that, in certain ways, that comes very near to the Christian heart. Is there a design for everything, or is everything either just taking a mechanical course, or being carried on by some mysterious powers which are inimical to human well-being? Is there any real design behind this created universe? To push that one step further: Is there a purpose in everything? Sooner or later, Christians come up against these questions. Under duress, trial, pressure and suffering, sometimes we do not know what to make of things. This seems to be a topsy-turvy universe, full of enigmas and contradictions and paradoxes, and we have a bad time over it. Is there a plan in it - is there really a Divine control of everything in this universe, in human history and in all that is happening? Is there after all, to use a word which I do not think we fully appreciate, a Providence for everything and in everything? - that is to say, is everything being made to work together according to design and purpose, and to work out toward a great, Divine, beneficent end?

Now, these people were arguing about that, and the Christians at Colossae were being greatly disturbed by it all.

And then it came nearer to their own Christian existence. It touched upon their very life as children of God. Now, if any people in the world ought to be quite sure about these matters - that there is a Divine purpose and Divine pattern and Divine Providence - it is Christians, and the very life of the Christian is affected by whether this is so or not. The matter of our assurance, our confidence, our restfulness, our power, our testimony, rests upon having an answer to these questions. The meaning of this whole universe, the order and the purpose in it, the design and the control of it, the Providence over all events and happenings in the course of human history - these are things that come very near to the Christian. If we have any doubt about them, our Christianity goes for nothing, the very foundations are swept from under our feet, we do not know where we are.

That was the emergency at Colossae. The very life of the Christians, the very life of the Church, was threatened. And if its life is threatened, its growth is threatened. The whole matter of the spiritual growth of the Church and of the Christians is at stake in this - growth, development and maturity. If that is threatened, then something else will be threatened: the whole thing will disintegrate, will fall apart; its unity and cohesion will collapse; the whole thing will be scattered into fragments. And so the very hope of the Church and of the Christian is struck at, their hope and their destiny. These are neither small nor unpractical matters. They may come very near at some time or other, and they require an answer.

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The Answer to the Situation

Now, it was to meet this whole situation, to answer all these serious questions and issues, that Paul wrote this letter: to confirm the Christians, to establish them, to sustain them, to encourage them; and he calls it 'good tidings', and it is. If you can give something to answer all that, it is indeed good tidings, is it not? That is 'gospel' indeed! You see, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ touches the uttermost bounds of this universe, and covers everything within those bounds, including human history, human happenings, world events, the course of things, the design in things, the end of things. The gospel touches it all at every point.

So Paul answers it, and he answers the whole of it in one word. His answer is: Christ. Christ is the answer. That answer is found inclusively in those words in chapter 3, verse 11, the last clause: "Christ is all, and in all." And what an immense 'all' Christ is if He covers the whole of that ground! If He reaches out and embraces all those mighty issues, what a Christ He is! The all-comprehending fact is emphatically and categorically stated by the Apostle in this letter. He states it in many sentences, but in this one statement he gathers it all up. The answer to all this is Christ. Christ is the explanation of all the happenings in human history. Christ explains this universe, Christ gives character to this universe, Christ stands behind all the course of the events in this universe. Christ is the integrating Person of everything, the One in whom all things hold together.

'Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning;
Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.'

The Evidence That the Answer is Satisfactory

But perhaps you may say, 'It is all very well for Paul to make a categorical statement like that, but what is the evidence?' Well, the evidence is quite real. And it must be said that, if we are asking for the evidence, something has gone wrong with us! We ought to be the answer, we ought to be the evidence: because the witness to this is first of all the personal, spiritual experience of the child of God. You can leave the vast universe for the moment, if you like, and come to the little universe of your own life - for, after all, what is true in the microcosm is only a reflection of what is true in the great cosmic realm. God brings down His evidence from the circumferential to the very centre of the individual Christian life, and the answer is there. What is the experience of a truly born-again child of God?

Now you can test whether you are born again by this, and, thank God, I know that many of you will be able to say, 'Yes, that is true to my experience'. But I ask you: What is your experience as a truly born-again child of God? When you really came to the Lord Jesus - however you may put it: when you let Jesus come into your heart or into your life, or when you handed over your life to Him; when there was a transaction with Him, a new birth, by which you became a child of God - not by any 'sacrament' applied to you, but by the inward operation of His Spirit: when you became a child of God in a living, conscious way, what was the first consciousness that came to you, and has remained with you ever since?

Was it not, and is it not, this: 'There is now a purpose in life, of which I never knew before; there is a purpose in things. Now I have the sense - indeed I know - that I was not just born into this world and grew up, but there was a purpose behind it.' There is design in things; a sense - you may not be able to explain it all, what it all means - but you have the sense now that you have arrived at, or at least begun to realise, the very purpose of your existence. Is that true? When the Lord Jesus at last has His place in our hearts, the big question of life is answered - the big question as to the 'Why' of our existence. Till then, you wander about, you do all sorts of things, you fill up time, you employ heart and mind and hand, but you do not know what it is all for. You may have a very full life, a very full life indeed, outside of Christ, and yet come to the end without being able to answer the question, What is it all about?

One man, who had enjoyed such a full life, who had become well-known in the schools of learning, a great figure in the intellectual realm, in his dying moment cried: 'I am taking an awful leap into the dark'. He had no answer to the question. But the simple child of God, immediately they come to the Lord, has the answer in consciousness, if not in explanation, in his or her heart, and that is what is called 'rest'. "Come unto me", said Jesus, "and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). Rest is in this: 'Well, I have been a wanderer, but now I have come home; I have been searching - I have found; I have been in quest of something - I did not know what it was - but now I have it'. There is purpose in this universe, and when Jesus Christ comes into His place, as this letter says, then you know there is purpose in your universe, and there will be purpose in the universe of everybody else, if only they will come that way.

And not only purpose, but more - control. The child of God very soon begins to realise that he or she has been taken under control, brought under a mastery; that there is a law of government set up in the consciousness, which is directive: which, on the one hand, says, 'Yes', the glorious 'Yes' of many liberties; on the other hand, 'No - careful, steady, watch!' We all know that. We do not hear those words, but we know that that is what is being said to us in our hearts. The Spirit of Christ within is just saying, 'Look to your steps - be careful, be watchful'. We have come under control. That is extended in many ways over the whole life, but it is a great reality. This universe is under control, it is under government. The evidence of it is found within our own experience when Christ comes to His place. And you can extend that into the future ages, when the whole universe will be like that, under Christ's control.

And then again: "in whom all things hold together". The wonderful thing about the Christian life is its integration, or, if you prefer another word, its unification. How scattered, how divided, we were before Christ got His place! We were 'all over the place', as we say - one thing after another, looking this way and looking that; hearts divided, lives divided; we in ourselves divided, a conflict within our own persons. When the Lord Jesus really gets His place as Lord within, the life is unified. We are just gathered up, poised, concentrated upon one thing. We have only one thing in view. What Paul said of himself becomes true: "but one thing I do..." (Phil. 3:13). We are people of "one thing". Christ unifies the life.

What about life itself, the life of the child of God? When the Lord Jesus is in His right place, the life of the child of God is secured, is established, is confirmed, and grows; there is spiritual growth and maturity. It is a wonderful thing. If, in some Christian lives, it is not realised as a fact, it is for very good reasons - or for bad reasons! - but if the Lord Jesus really is "all, and in all", in the life, if He 'in all things has the pre-eminence', it is wonderful to see the spiritual growth. Those who have much association with, or experience in dealing with, young Christians, have found this one of the most impressive things - how, where the Lord Jesus just gets His way, they go ahead spiritually, they grow. They come to understanding and knowledge which so many of the scholars seem to have missed. They have come to a real spiritual understanding. While other people are trying to get on along other lines - intellectually and so on - these young ones, who have not, many of them, the background of intellectual or scholastic training - they are just simple people - are just leaping ahead spiritually.

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This growth in spiritual intelligence and understanding does not rest upon anything natural. It is coming about because Jesus has such a large place, and He is the source and centre and sum of all spiritual knowledge. Over against that, it is possible to have great acquisitions and qualifications in the academic realm, to be doing big things in that realm, and yet to find that the simple things of the Lord Jesus Christ are to you as a foreign language. You do not know what it is about - you cannot follow or join in at all. This is sad, but true. There are Christians, yes, true Christians, who just cannot talk about the things of the Lord. If there is to be growth, it can only come about through Jesus being given His place, fully and without question.

And then, as to destiny. The statement is that the destiny of this universe is with the Lord Jesus, and that that destiny is universal glory. But that is just a beautiful idea, an enchanting vista, is it not? How are you going to prove it? In your own heart! Is it not equally true with the other matters that we have already been considering, that, when the Lord Jesus really gets His place, you have a foretaste of that glory? No one can understand the Christian who has not the Christian's experience, but there it is. It is not just that we are making out that we are having a good time. It is something coming from the inside; it is something of a foretaste of the glory that is to be. We have got the answer to all these immense questions right in our own spiritual experience.

The Witness of the Church

But then the Apostle moves to the Church, and speaks about the Church: "And he is the head of... the church... the firstborn from the dead" (Col. 1:18). How does the Church bear witness to the fact, this great fact, that Jesus is the answer to these immense questions? I think the Church gives the answer both positively and negatively.

It gives the answer positively - though not as positively as it might have done - but it does give the answer in this, that, after all (and what an 'all' of these two thousand years!), the Church is still in existence. Think of that inrush of the forces of antagonism and hatred and murder upon the Church in its infancy, with the determination of the greatest empire that the world had ever known to wipe it out. After all, it is that empire that has gone; the Church continues. Think, too, of all that has set itself during the centuries since to bring the Church to an end, to destroy it, and still is set upon that. Oh, that men were not so blind that they misread history! If only those powers in the world today, great kingdoms, great empires, would rightly read history, they would see they are on an utterly vain mission, a fool's errand indeed, to try to destroy the testimony of Jesus on this earth. It is they who will be destroyed.

Yes, the very continuance and persistence of the Church is evidence that this is true - that Jesus Christ is the key to this universe, that He is the answer to all these questions. I say, the Church does not give the answer as clearly as it might. If only it had gone on as it began, what an answer it would be!

But it gives the answer negatively, as well as positively. It answers it negatively by the very fact that, whereas once it stood up to the world victoriously, weathered the storms triumphantly, it has now moved away from its centre, the Lord Jesus Christ, and brought in substitutes for His absolute headship and lordship. It has made other things its governing interests. The result has been disintegration, division, and all the rest. Yes, the thing is answered in the negative, and it will always be like that.

Let us be quite clear: it is not that the truth has broken down. If these things ever become a question with you, it will not be because they are open to question, but because something has gone wrong with you as it has gone wrong with the Church. It is not in the truth, but in that which is supposed to represent the truth, that the question lies. These substitutes for the headship of Jesus Christ, whether they be men or institutions or religious interests or Christian activities, whatever they may be, if they get in the place of the Lord Jesus Himself, lead to nothing but disunity and division. To put that more positively, if only men, leaders and all the rest, would say, 'Look here, all our institutions, our missions, our organizations, all our interests in Christianity, must be subservient to the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ', you would find a unity coming about, a oneness. We should all flow together on that ground. It is the mighty tide of His lordship that will cure it all.

Go down by the sea-shore. The tide is right out, and all the breakwaters are naked, dividing up the whole coastline as it were into sections. But as the tide comes up, the breakwaters, the dividing things, begin to disappear. You come back at full flood-tide, and you see nothing whatever of those dividing breakwaters. The rising tide has buried them all. And when Christ is all, and in all, 'in all things having the pre-eminence', all those things which belong to the low tide of spiritual life, the ebb-tide of spiritual life, will just disappear. The proof is in the Church.

We had a little taste of it during the recent visit to this country of Dr. Graham. There was one consuming passion to bring Christ into His place at the beginnings of life; all the different sections were found concerned with that. Where were the barriers, where were the 'breakwaters', where were the departmental things? They had gone, buried under this high tide of concern that Christ should have His place in lives. Why should that be for three months only? Why should it be experienced only in a convention lasting a few days once a year? No, this position is God's thought for always. The key to it is just this - Christ all in all.

Perhaps we can see now why mention of the gospel in this letter is confined to one emphasis - "the hope of the gospel". Yes, the only occurrences of 'gospel' or 'good news' are in that connection - "the hope of the good news". The hope of the gospel is in Jesus Christ being all and in all. Hope is a Person, not an abstract nature in us - 'being hopeful' - which does not amount to much more than a periodical, variable optimism. Hope here is a Person. The hope of the good news is: He in all things having the pre-eminence. That is where the hope lies for you, for me, for the Church, for the world, for the universe. That is the hope of the gospel.

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Chapter 7 - In His Letter to the Thessalonians

"...our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance (1 Thess. 1:5).
"...having suffered before, and been shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we waxed bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God in much conflict" (2:2).
"...we have been approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel..." (2:4).
"...being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls... For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God" (2:8,9).
"...we... sent Timothy, our brother and God's minister in the gospel of Christ..." (3:1,2).
"...rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus..." (2 Thess. 1:.
"...whereunto he called you through our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2:14).

We see that the Gospel has quite a place in these letters. We seek now to discover the real meaning of the gospel, that is, the essential meaning of the good tidings, from the standpoint of these letters and the Thessalonian believers, and we shall be helped to that understanding if we take a look at the spiritual history, life and state of these believers in Thessalonica.

The Thessalonian Christians an Example

You will at a glance see what a special regard Paul had for them. He reputedly uses words such as these: "We give thanks to God always for you all". Both in the first and second letters he speaks like that (1. 1:2; 2. 1:3, 2:13). "We give thanks to God for you". And then he says about them a very wonderful thing, which gives us a definite lead in this consideration. He says in the first letter, chapter 1, verse 7: "Ye became an ensample to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia". That is something to say about a company of the Lord's people, and it leads us at once to ask the question - How were they an ensample? It was evidently not only to those immediately referred to, in all Macedonia, and Achaia, for these letters remain unto this day, and they therefore represented that which is an example for all the Lord's people. If that was true of them, then the gospel must have meant something very much where they were concerned. It must have had a very special form of expression in them, and so we seek to answer the question: How were they "an ensample to all that believe"?

A Pure Spirit and a Clean Heart

We find the answer in the first place here in this very first chapter. It was in their realism in reception of the gospel. "Our gospel came unto you not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance". And again: "when ye received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, ye accepted it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God" (2:13). Now that represents a very clean start; and if we are going to come to the place of these Thessalonian believers, if the gospel is to have that expression in us that it had in them, if it is going to be true in our case that we are an example to all them that believe, then it is very important that we have a clean start.

For us, of course, if we have advanced in the Christian life without becoming such exemplary believers, that may mean retracing our steps in order to start again somewhere where we have gone wrong; clearing away a lot of rubbish and starting at a certain point all over again. But I am thinking also of young Christians who have recently made the start. You are really at the beginning, and we are most concerned about you, because you may meet many old Christians who are not by any means an example to all that believe. I am sorry to have to say that, but it is quite true, and we do not want you to be like that. We want you to be exemplary Christians; those of whom the Apostle Paul, if he were present, could say, 'I thank God always for you'. It would be a great thing, would it not, if that could be said of us? 'Thank God for him! Thank God for her! Thank God that ever we came into touch with this one, and that one! I always thank God for them - they are an example of what Christians ought to be!'

Now, that is the desire of the Lord, that is our desire for you, and it should be the desire of our hearts for ourselves. Although we may not have succeeded, let us not give up hope that some may yet give thanks for us, that we may be an example, that in some things, at any rate, it may be true of us as it was of these. Paul says here: "Ye became imitators of us" (1 Thess. 1:6). The Lord help us to be such an example that we could invite others, in some respects at least, to imitate us, without any spiritual pride.

Well, if this is to be so, the start must be a clean one. You see, quite evidently, as these Thessalonians listened to Paul preaching the good tidings, their minds and hearts were free from prejudice. They would not have come to the conclusion to which they did come if there had been any prejudice, if they had already closed down the matter in their minds, or come to a set position. They were open in heart from the outset, ready for whatever was of God, and that created a capacity for discerning what was of God. You will never know whether a thing is of God if you entertain prejudice, if you have already judged it, if already you have come to a fixed position. If you are settled in your mind, closed in your heart, harbour suspicions and fears, you have already sabotaged the work of the Holy Spirit, and you will never know if the thing is of God. You must be open-hearted, open-minded, free from suspicions and prejudices, and ready in this attitude - 'Now, if there is anything of the Lord, anything of God, I am ready for that, no matter through whom it comes, how it comes, where it comes. If it is of God, I am ready for it'. That creates a disposition to which the Holy Spirit can bear witness, and makes things possible for the Lord.

Now, as we shall see, that is exactly how these Thessalonians were. They received the word, yes, in much affliction, but they received it as the Word of God, not as the word of man. Because of their purity of spirit, they had the sense - 'This thing is right, this is of God!' That was a good start. As I said earlier, it may be that some of us will have to get back somewhere to make that start again. To any reading these words, who may be of advanced years in the Christian life, I would say: Dear friend, if you have anywhere on the road become in any way affected, infected, by prejudice and suspicion, you have closed the door to anything further of God. Let us clearly understand that. It is true that -

    'The Lord hath yet more light and truth
    To break forth from His Word'.

We have not yet exhausted all that the Lord has to show us in His Word; but He will only show it to the pure in heart. "The pure in heart... shall see God" (Matt. 5:.

These Thessalonians, then, had a pure spirit from the start.

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Mutuality and Maturity

The next thing that we notice about them, after their realism in reception, was their mutuality and maturity - two things which always go together. In both these letters, that which the Apostle speaks about perhaps more than anything else is the wonderful love between these believers. "The love of each one of you all toward one another aboundeth" (2 Thess. 1:3). He is speaking all the way through about their mutual love. And going alongside of that was their spiritual growth. You see, love always builds up (1 Cor. 8:1). This kind of love, mutual love, always means spiritual increase. We can see how true that is if we view it from the opposite standpoint. Little, personal, petty, selfish, separated, individual Christians, or companies or bodies of Christians who are exclusive and closed, and have not a wide open heart of love to all saints - how small they are, how cramped they are. It is true. And it is in this mutual love one for another, and growing and increasing love one for another, that spiritual growth takes place. Do not forget that. If you are concerned about the spiritual growth of your own heart, your own life, and that of others, it will be along the line of love, mutual love, and you are the one to begin it. Mutuality and maturity always go together.

Suffering and Service

And then, in the third place, you will find that they were characterized by suffering and service, and this is a wonderful Divine combination. It is something that is not natural. The Apostle had much to say about it, as you will see if you underline the word 'suffering' in these letters, and note his references to their sufferings and their afflictions. They "received the word in much affliction" (1 Thess. 1:6). He speaks about their sufferings, and he describes those sufferings. They in Thessalonica were suffering along the same lines and for the same causes as their brethren in Judaea, he said (2:14).

Now, in Judaea, that is, in the country of the Jews, you know how the Christians suffered. Christ Himself suffered at the hands of the Jews; Stephen was martyred at the hands of the Jews; the Church met its first persecutions in Judaea, in Jerusalem, and they were scattered abroad by the persecutions that arose there over Stephen; and Paul says, 'Now you are suffering in that way'. Evidently there was in Thessalonica much persecution, much opposition; threats and all sorts of difficulties - the kind of thing, perhaps, where it was very difficult for them to do business and get jobs, all because the business was in the hands of those who had no room for this Christianity and for these Christians.

But with all that severe suffering, and with all their "much affliction" they did not become introspective. That is the peril of suffering. If you are suffering frustration, opposition, persecution, or if the best jobs are given to someone else, and so on, the natural thing is to turn in upon yourself, to be very sorry for yourself, to begin to nurse your trouble and be wholly occupied with yourself. But here, suffering led to service.

The Apostle says that the Word went forth from them, not only through all the region of Macedonia and Achaia, but throughout the whole country (1:. Their suffering - what did it do? It made them turn outwards, and say, 'There are others everywhere in need, in suffering, as we: let us see what we can do for them'. That is the way to respond to the gospel, is it not? That speaks of the glorious gospel! The gospel had become to them such good news that it had the effect upon them of delivering them entirely from all self-pity in the deepest affliction. Let us take that to heart.

Patience and Hope

Furthermore the Apostle speaks of their "patience of hope" (1:3), and that simply means that they did not easily give up. That counts for something, you know. You are having a difficult time; everything and everybody is against you. It is so easy to give up - just to give up; to draw out of the race, or drop your hands in the fight, and say, 'It is no use - better give it all up'. But no: these Christians had patience and hope. They did not easily give up, they 'stuck to it', and we shall see that they had a hope that kept them sticking to it.

Such were these who were 'an example to all that believe'. In them we see the constituents of exemplary Christians, and they are the true features of the gospel. You see, the gospel is for Christians in difficulty! It is not only for the unsaved, but for Christians when they are in difficulty or in suffering. It is still good news. If we lose the 'good news' element in the gospel, if it loses for us its keen edge as 'good tidings', we become stale; we come to the place where we 'know it all'. If we lose that sense, then when trouble comes we give up, we let go; but if to have come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus is still for us the greatest thing in all the world and all the universe, then we get through.

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Difficulties Because of Temperament

Now, because difficulties always correspond to our dispositions, that is, what we are always gives rise to the nature of our trials, so it was with the Thessalonians. Nothing is a trial to you unless you are made in a certain way. Something that is a trial to you might never be a trial to me at all. Or it might be the other way round. What might be a terrible thing to me and knock me right off my balance, other people could go through quite calmly, and wonder what I am making such a fuss about. Our troubles and our trials very largely take their rise from the way we are made.

Now I want you to follow this. The thoroughness of these Thessalonian believers led them into peculiar testings. And that is always the case. If you are not thorough-going, you will not have thorough-going difficulties. You will get through more or less easily. If you are thorough-going, you are going to meet thorough-going testings. They arise quite naturally out of your own attitude or your own disposition.

Now, you know that human nature and constitution is made in various ways. You know in general that we are not all alike. That is just as well! But we can to a very large extent classify human nature into different categories - what we call temperaments. In the main there are seven different temperaments, or categories of human constitution. I am not going to deal with that in detail, but there is a very useful point here on this matter. These Thessalonians were quite clearly of the 'practical' temperament, and the keenness of their particular sufferings was largely found because they were like that. I do not, of course, mean that other people do not suffer, but they suffer in other ways.

You see, the standard of life of the practical temperament is quick and direct returns. We must see something for our money very quickly! It is the business temperament, the temperament of commercial life. The things which govern this temperament are quick successes. 'Success' is the great word of the practical temperament. It is success that succeeds. The successful are the idols of this particular kind of make-up.

There is not much sentiment here. These people cannot stop for sentiment. Things that are not what they call practical are regarded by them as just 'sentimental'. They are not so, of course, but that is how Martha reacted to Mary. Mary was not sentimental, but Martha thought she was, because Martha was so pre-eminently practical. Again, there is very little imagination in this make-up. It rides roughshod over all sensibilities. It does not stop to think how people feel about what is said; it just goes right on.

And then it sometimes makes terrible mistakes - it confuses things. For instance, it mistakes inquisitiveness for depth, because it has always to be asking endless questions. The 'practical' people are always asking questions, questions, questions; they keep you going with questions all the time, thinking that this is an evidence of spiritual depth. They think that they are not just taking things at their surface value, they are being very practical, as well as deep. But there is a good deal of difference between inquisitiveness and depth. It is very possible to confuse things.

Now we want to get to understand these Thessalonians and the effect of the gospel. Can we not now picture them, in the light of what I have said? They responded quickly, and in a very practical way, and in a very thorough-going way. One of the major themes to which they responded was the coming of the Lord. Right at the beginning Paul says: "Ye turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven" (1:9,10). It was a big thing with them, this coming of the Lord, and they had concluded that the Lord's coming would take place, at latest, in their own lifetime. That was their practical reaction to the gospel, and it was good in its way. But you know that these two letters of Paul are almost entirely occupied with correcting a false element in that reaction.

Now you find them in trouble - trouble springing out of their own make-up - in this matter. They had been saying to themselves something like this. 'The Lord is coming - we have been told the Lord is coming, we have accepted that "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh" and we have accepted that to happen any day; and we were told that, when the Lord came, all His own would be caught up to meet Him. We concluded that all believers would be caught up, be raptured, and enter into the glory like that, together. Oh, what a wonderful thing - all going together into the presence of the Lord! But some of our friends died, yesterday, last week, and people are still dying. It seems to upset this whole matter of all being caught up together.' They were thrown into confusion and consternation because, instead of the Lord coming and gathering them all up to Himself, there were people amongst them going into the grave. It was a setback for their practical make-up, you see.

Now, the Apostle writes to them. He writes to them the gospel, the good news, for people who are in perplexity and in sorrow because of disappointment in this way, and he says: 'I want you to know, dear brethren, I want you to understand, that that makes no difference in the final issue. When the Lord comes, they will not have gone before us; and when He comes, we shall not go before them. It just does not make any difference. They that are asleep in Jesus and we who are alive and remain shall all be caught up together. You need not allow this thing to trouble you any more. You must not sorrow as those who have no hope, or who have lost their great hope - as those whose great hope of the coming of the Lord has been struck at by the deaths of these believers. There is really no place for any element of disappointment over this. It is good news for those who have lost loved ones - it is good news concerning the issue of life and death - that we shall all together go up "to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." It is just wonderful.'

So we see that here Paul was able to bring in the gospel - the good news, the good tidings - in order to get over a certain difficulty that had arisen because of their make-up, their disposition.

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A Help to Know One's Own Disposition

Let us pause there for a minute. You know, we should get over a great many of our troubles if we knew what our temperaments were. If only we would sit down for a minute - and this is not introspection at all - sit down for a minute and say: 'Now, what is my peculiar disposition and make-up? What is the thing to which, by reason of my constitution, I am most prone? What are the factors, the elements, that make up my temperament?' If you can put your finger on that, you have the key to many of your troubles. Asaph, the psalmist, was having a very bad time on one occasion. He looked at the wicked and saw them prospering. He saw the righteous having a difficult time - himself included - and he got very downhearted about all this. But then he pulled himself together, he recollected, and he said: "This is my infirmity; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High" (Ps. 127:10). '"This is my infirmity"! This is not the Lord, this is not the truth - this is just me, this is my proneness to go down in times of difficulty. It is how I am made; it is my reaction to trouble.'

Now, perhaps that sounds a very naturalistic way of dealing with things. But I have not finished yet. If you and I will understand this thing - that a lot of our trouble comes because we are made in a certain way; it is really in our own constitution - we shall have a ground upon which to go to the Lord. We shall be able to go to the Lord and say: 'Lord, You know how I am made; You know how I naturally react to things. You know how, because I am made that way, I am always being caught in certain ways; You know how it is that I behave under certain strains. You know me, Lord. Now, Lord, You are different from what I am: where I am weak, You are strong; where I am faulty, You are perfect.'

Do you not see that the Lord Jesus, the perfect Man, is the perfect balance of all the good qualities in all the temperaments, that in Him are none of the bad qualities of any temperament, and that the Holy Spirit can make Christ to be unto us that which we are not in ourselves? That is the great wonder, the great mystery, the great glory, of the meaning of Christ as mediated to us by the Holy Spirit. It is the wonder of His humanity: a perfect manhood without any of all this that troubles us. Look at Him under duress: He does not go down. Look at Him from any standpoint of testing and trial: He goes through. But He is man. He is not going through on the basis of His Deity. He is going through on the basis of His perfect humanity, and that is to be mediated to us.

Spiritual growth means this, that we are becoming something other than what we are naturally. Is it not so? Naturally, we may be inclined to be rather miserable people - always taking a miserable view, always going down in the dumps. Now, when the Holy Spirit takes charge of us, the miserably inclined people become joyful, although it is not natural for them to be joyful. That is the miracle of the Christian life. We become something that we are not naturally. Naturally, we would very quickly go down under some kinds of criticism or persecution, and nurse our troubles, but when the Lord Jesus is in us, we can take it and go on. We do not go down, we go on. He makes us other than what we are. That is the work of grace in the life of the believer.

These Thessalonians suffered very much because of their practical temperament. They expected that that of which they had been told at the first would come about immediately. They were saying to themselves: 'The Lord will come - He may come today, any day - and that will be the end of all our troubles. But time is going on, and people are dying, and things are getting more and more difficult. It does not look very much as though the Lord is coming...' They may have been almost at the point of breaking and scattering. And at that point a new presentation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus came in, bringing the hope of something different from what they were naturally.

What is true in the case of the practical temperament is true in all other temperaments. We may take this as a principle. If we only understood it, the Lord is dealing with every one of us like that. He is dealing with us according to what we are. It is no use trying to stereotype or standardise the dealings of God with people. God's dealings with me would perhaps not be very troublesome to you, but God's dealings with you might very well throw me right off my feet. He deals with us according to ourselves, in order that there may be that of Christ in us which is not of ourselves. I say again, that is the work of grace. That is the mediation of Christ - that is the very meaning of being conformed to the image of Christ. It is partaking of His nature - something utterly different. But it is a terrible process. Now we have got to get through as these people got through.

Is that good news? I think it is. I think that is the gospel, 'good tidings'. It is good tidings for the man who is always too ready to drop out and give up and be miserable. It is good tidings to those who, because of their own natural expectations and reactions, are disappointed in what is actually happening. It is good tidings that Christ is something other than we are, and that we can be saved from what we are by Christ. It is very practical, you see. How are we saved from what we are? By Christ! Not by Christ just coming and putting out His hands and pulling us up. That is what we are all wanting Him to do. We are appealing to the Lord to come and do something like that, literally lift us right out of where we are. What He is doing is displacing us, and putting Himself in our place in an inward way. It is a process, a deep process, and it is perhaps only over years that you can see more of Christ. That person used to be such-and-such a one, but there is a difference now, you can see Christ now; they are no longer what they used to be, they are getting over that. They are being "changed into the same image". That is good news: good news for the Thessalonians, and good news for us.

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The Test at the End

But there is one other thing with these Thessalonians. Things in the world were becoming increasingly difficult; they were going from bad to worse. These dear people saw things happening, they saw forces at work, and they thought: 'This does not look as though the Lord is coming, as though His Kingdom is coming. It looks as though Satan is having it all his own way. Things are going from bad to worse; and as to things being changed, as to there being "a new heaven and a new earth" and a new world state, all this that we have thought would come with the coming of Christ and His Kingdom, we do not see any sign of it at all. Rather is it going the other way: the world is getting worse, evil men are waxing worse and worse. There seems to be more and more of the Devil than ever there was.'

Now, the Apostle wrote his letters on that, and he said: 'Look here, that does not mean things going wrong; that does not mean disappointment for your expectations. The Lord will not come until those things have happened and come to fulness. "The mystery of lawlessness does already work". Before He comes, two things must happen.

'First of all, there must take place a great failing away.' A great falling away? Christians falling away? Professing Christians falling away, going away from the Lord, turning back? That is not very practical for these people! Yes, that is exactly what will happen toward the end. The nearer the coming of the Lord is, the more the test will be finding people out. The sieve will be at work. There will be a falling away; there will be many people - professors - who say, 'We are not going with this, we cannot go on with this any longer'. They will go back from following the Lord. It always was so. It was so in the days of our Lord's flesh. At the end it will be like that. 'Oh, how disappointing!' Ah, yes, but understand that that is how it will be, and that it does not mean that everything has gone wrong. It is just going to be like that. When the Lord does take away a people, it will be a people who have gone on with Him to the end; and He is testing, testing. 'Now, you Thessalonians, understand that what He is doing is testing you as to whether you will go right on to the end.' It has to be made manifest whether the root of the matter is in believers, or if it is only profession. So do not misunderstand the signs of the times.

And then the second thing. Antichrist, that man of sin, the Devil, seems to be getting more and more of his own way, they thought. And it was so. 'But', said the Apostle, 'the Lord's day will not come until that man of sin, the Antichrist, has been revealed.' 'Oh, we thought Christ was coming, not Antichrist!' Ah, but Christ will not come until Antichrist has come. Do not misunderstand things. If there is a mighty movement in this world by Satan, the Devil seemingly incarnate, a great incarnation of him - it may be in man form or system form, whatever it is - that is dead set upon obliterating everything that belongs to Christ, that is not a bad sign. That is a good sign - the Lord is about to come! That is the good news in the day when the Devil seems to be carrying everything away. That is portentous. The Lord is at hand.

"But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh", said Jesus (Luke 21:28). So if suffering increases, if patience is tested; if Satan seems to be having it his way, and getting the power into his hands, do not be deceived - do not allow that to say to you, 'Well, our hope is not being realised.' Turn it round the other way, and say, 'These are the very things that say that our hope is about to be realised.' This is good news for the day of adversity, good news for Christians in suffering, good news when Satan is doing his worst. The Lord is at hand!

The Summing up of the Whole Matter

But where shall we sum it all up? We have always sought to find a little fragment in which it can be all concluded, and I think we have it here:

"Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it" (1 Thess. 5:24).

Here is the conclusion and summing up of the whole matter. Yes, beloved ones are dying, going to the Lord. Time is dragging on. The Devil is apparently gaining power and doing his worst. We, the Lord's people, are in suffering: nevertheless, God is able to see us through. "Who will also do it." What more do we want? Over against everything else - 'He will also do it.' That is good news! After all, and in the final summing up, the good news is that it is not left with us. It is the Lord's matter. What is left to us is to believe God, to seek to understand His ways, to be steadfast, to hope unto the end, and then the Lord takes over. "Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it" Good news!

[Shammu]

Chapter 8 - In His Letters to Timothy

"...the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust" (1 Tim. 1:11).

"Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but suffer hardship with the gospel according to the power of God..." (2 Tim. 1:.

"...our Saviour Jesus Christ... abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel, whereunto I was appointed a herald, and an apostle, and a teacher" (2 Tim. 1:10, R.V. mg.).

"Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel..." (2 Tim. 2:.

We come now to our closing thoughts on what Paul called "the gospel which I preach". "The gospel of the glory of the blessed God". We need, in the first place, just to note the correct translation of these words, because the different versions render them in different ways. The Authorised Version has: "the glorious gospel of the blessed God". You will note how different this is from the Revised Version from which I have quoted above. The latter - the Revised - is the correct rendering of the statement, and the point in getting it right is this. Paul is not speaking of what the gospel is about - the content of the gospel. He is speaking of the gospel which has to do with the manifestation of the glory of God. That may sound a little technical, but it is very important. Let me repeat: what Paul has in mind here is the gospel, or the good tidings, which is concerned with the manifestation of the glory of God. The glory of God in manifestation - that is the gospel.

Note another thing: "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God". There is a translation which changes that word, and uses the word 'happy' in the place of 'blessed': "the gospel of the glory of the happy God". But that does not sound quite right, does it, in our ears? And yet, if we understood the real meaning, we should realise that that is not an altogether inappropriate word.

There are two Greek words translated 'blessed' in the New Testament. One, which is much the more common, literally just means 'well spoken of'. That is its literal meaning, but in the New Testament it is almost exclusively used in the sense of 'blessed', and is so translated. That, however, is not the word that is used here. The word used here - the second of the two words to which I have referred - is one that occurs far less frequently. It is a word which expresses that which properly speaking is true of God alone: that is, the uniqueness of God as to what He is in Himself, altogether apart from what men think of Him or say about Him. It is just what He is in Himself. You may think what you like, and say what you like, but God is this. This is the word here translated 'blessed'. The word really means that solemn, calm, restful, perpetual gladness that fills the heart of God. If you can get the feeling of that definition, you have got somewhere near understanding the meaning of the word here translated 'blessed'. It is the gospel of the glory of the calm, restful, confident gladness of the heart of God; the good news, the good tidings, of that.

The Good Tidings of the Glory of God

What is this glory of God which becomes that gospel, that good news? It is the glory of God in the revelation of Himself in His Son Jesus Christ. The revelation of Himself. In the Old Testament the glory of God has symbolic form, as we know. For instance, in the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle, between the cherubim on the mercy seat, the glory was found. The glory covered the mercy seat. It was a light streaming down upon the mercy seat, upon the ark of the covenant; streaming down and focusing there. It was heavenly radiance. It was but a symbol. That which it symbolized is here - the light of God streaming down upon, and through, His Son Jesus Christ. That is the glory of God. Paul in writing to the Corinthians puts it in this way: "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). It is that which is in the Lord Jesus of God's perfectly restful, calm, tranquil, abiding satisfaction.

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The Glory of God in a Man

Now, here is a very remarkable thing. You bear about the glory of God. Much is said about it, and you are told that that is what you will find in the Bible; that, if you go to the Bible, there you will find much about the glory of God. When you take up the Bible looking for the glory of God, what do you find? A Man! You find that you are confronted with a Man. You cannot get away from that Man: the Old Testament is always pointing, by numerous means and methods and ways, to a Man; the New Testament, from beginning to end, has one Man in view, a Man always in view. So that you have to say: 'This is the answer to my quest. I am in quest of the knowledge of the glory of God, and God's answer to the quest is a Man.' That is but an exposition of this little phrase, "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God", which is the revelation of God in His Son, Jesus Christ.

God is here represented as being in a state of perfect tranquillity, restfulness, calm, abiding assurance and satisfaction and joy, and everything that can be summed up in the word ' blessedness '. God is represented as being, God is stated to be, in that condition. What is the basis of that state of God? It is just that God has found a perfect, a complete, expression of Himself in a Man. Yes, we know who that Man was. I am not overlooking or setting aside His Deity, His own Godhead, but I am not thinking about that just now. You see, God created man with very, very high purposes. Indeed, man was created in order to answer to and satisfy the heart of God: and when we say that, we are saying tremendous things. To satisfy the heart of God! There are some people who take a lot of satisfying. Indeed, they never do seem satisfied. Things are always falling short of their standard and their ideal. But you can go a long way, you can go as far as it is possible to go with any human conception of satisfaction, and you still fall far, far short, infinitely short, of God's idea. God is so much greater, so much more wonderful.

We have in the fallen creation but a faint reflection of how wonderful and great God is. Yet even when we view this very creation as it is, with all its faults and weaknesses and variations and so on, we have to stand in awe and worship. We can see just a faint indication of what a wonderful God He is, and of how much it must take to satisfy Him. Yet here He is in a state of absolute satisfaction, calm, tranquil, restful, happy, because all those thoughts of His, all those desires of His, all those intentions of His, and all those first undertakings of His, have now been consummated and perfected - not in the creation generally, but in a Man. That Man answers to God to the very last requirement of that infinite Mind. How great Christ is! God finds, therefore, His happiness, His blessedness, His satisfaction, His tranquillity, in that.

A Representative Man

Perhaps you may think, 'That is a beautiful thing to say, those are very wonderful thoughts to express, but where is the practical value of it?' Ah, that is just the gospel, you see. Do you think that the Lord Jesus, God's Son, came through and took the position of man, and was made perfect to God's utter and final satisfaction, just in order that God should have that in one Man? No, the gospel is this, that the Lord Jesus is representative of all the men that God is going to have. He is representative and He is inclusive. The old and beautiful beginning of the gospel, which you and I, after long familiarity with it, still often need, for our own tranquillity, to grasp more perfectly, is just this: that Jesus Christ, God's Son, is a sphere into which we are called, bidden, invited to enter by faith, so that we are hidden in Him as to what we are ourselves; God sees only Him and not us. A wonderful thing! You have got to put aside all your arguments and all your questions, and accept God's fact. That this phrase, "in Christ", occurs two hundred times and more in the New Testament must surely mean something.

God Sees Us in Christ

The first, and perhaps the all-inclusive, thing that it means, is that, if you are in Christ, God sees Christ instead of seeing you. I have a little piece of paper here. Let that represent you or me in ourselves, what we are. I put it into a book, and that book represents Christ. You do not see the paper any more you only see the book. That is our position "in Christ". That is what Christ means. All His satisfaction to God is put to our account. That is the gospel: when you and I are in Christ, God is satisfied with us - tranquil, happy, blessed. Oh, wonderful gospel! You cannot grasp it, or explain it, but there is the fact stated. This is the gospel of the glory of the satisfied God.

Putting again the test that we were applying in other connections in an earlier chapter, it is just this: that, when you and I really come into Christ and find our place in Christ, one of the first things of which we are conscious is that all the strain has gone out; we have come to rest. A marvellous tranquillity, that is not natural, has come into us. We feel the battle is all over between us and God. It is wonderful; a blessed, happy condition. Now, that is our experience, but what is the significance of it? It is the Spirit of the happy God bearing witness to God's happiness in our hearts. "The gospel of the glory of the blessed God". The first stage of that is a position. We are in Christ.

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Christ In Us

The second stage or the second aspect of that is that Christ is in us. But we must not pursue that to the same conclusion as in the last point. That does not mean that we are seen and Christ is hidden. No, Christ is in us and we are in Christ: an impossible thing to explain, unless perhaps we can put it like this. Dr. Campbell Morgan was asked on one occasion whether baptism was sprinkling or immersion. He said: 'My dear friend, come with me to the Niagara Falls, and stand underneath. Are you sprinkled or are you immersed?' Well, I leave you to answer. But it is like that. Christ is in us. Why is He in us? He is in us as that very satisfaction to the heart of God, in order that the Spirit of God may work in us to conform us to Christ.

And that introduces another aspect of the Christian life: that, if you and I go on continually on the basis of Christ within, our joy increases. That can be put to the test. Stop going on with the Lord, and see what happens to our joy. Get away from the Lord, and see what happens to our blessedness. We shall begin to lament then -
'Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?'

Ah, but God forbid that it should be necessary for any of us to sing that hymn. It is not necessary. Go on with the Lord Jesus on the basis of God's satisfaction with Him, and the blessedness increases. God's happiness enlarges in our heart. Christ is installed within as the pattern, standard, and basis upon which God works.

Now, here is something fundamental. Oh, how long we take to learn this! It is simple, I know, but it is fundamental and it is a thing on which we are always tripping up. If we begin to try to go on on the ground of what we are, God stops. If we get on to our own ground, what we are in ourselves - our miserable, wretched self, that God regards as a corpse and a stinking corpse - forgive me for me for saying that - because it has been dead for two thousand years (that may sound amusing, but really it is exceedingly serious): if you get off the ground of "Christ in you" on to what you are in yourself, God says, 'I am going no farther'. All Divine operations cease. We can only continue as we began. We began in faith that Jesus Christ was our substitute, took our place with God and answered to God for us. That was our faith that brought us into Christ. We have to go right on to the end with the same faith in the Lord Jesus, and no faith in ourselves, and God will go on if we go on on His ground. The good news is that God is ready to go right on with increasing blessedness if we will only keep on His ground. His glory is in His Son, and He has no glory in man apart from His Son.

So Christ is out sphere, Christ is our centre, and Christ is our model, and we are being conformed, says the Apostle, until Christ is fully formed in us. Simple, basic: God's glory in Christ being manifested in believers, in the Church, because believers are resting upon God's satisfaction with His Son. That and that only is the way of the glory of God and the expression of God's blessedness, God's happiness. That is the gospel.

You see, it all comes at last to focus upon this. What is the gospel? When you have said all that you can about it, it is included in, and compassed by, this - God's perfect satisfaction, rest, tranquillity, concerning His Son, made available to us. Oh, that you and I might live without conflict with God, because we abide in Christ! Brother, sister, when you begin to feel miserable about yourself, repudiate it. 'Yes, I know all about that. If I do not know all about that now, it is time that I did. I know all about what I am; I know where that will lead me if I begin to take that into account. I set that aside. It is a fact - God has done it - that, so long ago, in Christ I was crucified, in Christ I died, in Christ I was buried, in Christ I have been raised. It is all in Christ. That is where I stand.' Maintain that position; abide in Christ. Get out of that on to any other ground, and the glory departs, the blessedness, the happiness, is arrested.

Good News for Young People

Paul was speaking to Timothy about the gospel, and Timothy needed good news, good tidings. To begin with, Timothy was a young man. A young man who is a Christian has his own personal problems - he has many difficulties and problems in himself. A young man represents the sum of a life at its beginnings: all the problems of life are resident there. Timothy was a young man. To such a young man, the Apostle says: 'It is all right, Timothy: you may be beset by all these problems and these difficulties, you may be having all this trouble spiritually in these different ways, but Jesus Christ is equal to the whole situation!' Do remember, young man, young woman, that the Lord Jesus is God's answer to all the problems of youth. That is good tidings, is it not?

Timothy was not only a young man, but he was a young man in difficulties of a specific kind by reason of his position in Christian work. Difficulties were coming at him from three directions. Firstly, there was the pagan world. What a challenge that must have meant for a young man in those days! It was a world that had no place for God, no place for the Lord, no place for the things of God, and all the opposing force of that world must have seemed concentrated upon this young man. Secondly, there were all the difficulties of the Jewish world. Paul hints at them here. These Judaizers were pursuing Paul over the whole world, with the determination: 'This man shall be brought to an end - this man's work shall be utterly wiped out!' By every means these Judaizers were set upon destroying Paul and his work and his converts, and Timothy was associated with Paul. Paul says: "Be not ashamed... of me". Association created a good many difficulties for Timothy. The answer is: 'All right, Timothy ; there is good news for you! The Lord Jesus is equal to that - He will see you through it all'.

And then Timothy was a young man in great responsibility in the work of God - in the Church of God. If you know anything about that, you know that you need a fairly sure ground of confidence. He came up against some very difficult Christians. But Paul said: "Let no man despise thy youth." There were certain wiseacres - people who thought themselves to be something - who were inclined to say, 'Oh, Timothy is only a young fellow, you know - you must not take too much notice of him.' They were despising his youth. That is rather a difficult thing to endure. It takes the heart out of you if you happen to be in that position. I remember so well, when I commenced ministry and became responsible for a church, where most of the church officers were old men, one of them was heard to say, one day, 'He is so young, you know!' But I had a champion among them, and he said, 'Don't worry about that - he is getting over that every day!' Well, that is very kind and nice: but that sort of attitude among fellowworkers may well take the heart out of you, when you have to carry the responsibility. Timothy was in that position, but this is the gospel for Timothy: 'It is all right: the Lord Jesus is equal to that situation - He can see you through that too'.

After all, it is really just this. It is what the Lord Jesus is "made unto us... from God": God's satisfaction. Oh, thank God that the Lord Jesus covers our faults and weaknesses and defectiveness. I once read a story - I think it was true - of a certain hotel on the Continent, where people used to go and stay for rest and quiet and detachment. One day a mother arrived with her little girl, and that little girl was just beginning to learn the piano. Every morning, first thing, she went to the piano and strummed and strummed, and all day long she strummed. Morning, noon and night she strummed, until those people became almost distracted, and they were counselling together as to what they should do, when a famous pianist arrived to stay at the hotel. He at once sensed the atmosphere, took in the situation, and when the little girl went to the piano, he went up alongside and sat down, and put his hands over hers and guided them, and there began to come forth the most beautiful music. The people came down from their rooms into the room where the piano was, and sat down and listened. When the recital was over, the pianist said to the little girl, 'Thank you so much, dear; we have enjoyed it so much today' - and all the trouble was over.

Yes, the Lord Jesus just puts His hands over ours. We might make a mess of things; we do, if we are left to ourselves. We upset a lot, do a lot of harm; we are so imperfect, so faulty: and then the Lord Jesus comes, in this blessed way, and corrects our defectiveness, answers to the Father for us, makes good our deficiencies - how? - with Himself, just Himself.

That is the answer; that is the good news - "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God".

The End

Up next, The Gospel of the Glory

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The Gospel of the Glory
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 - The Character of the Gospel

"...THE GOSPEL OF THE GLORY OF THE BLESSED GOD, which was committed to my trust" (1 Tim. 1:11).

"In whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, THE GOSPEL OF YOUR SALVATION, - in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:13-14).

"With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints, and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness THE MYSTERY OF THE GOSPEL" (Eph. 6:18-19).

There are one or two things which we must note at the outset in connection with the above. Those passages are all words of fullness; that is, they are written very near the end of the life of the Apostle, when he is in possession of a very full revelation which has been growing through the whole of his life as a servant of the Lord. To the initial vision there has been added revelation, an enlargement of spiritual knowledge - added, sometimes in especial ways and also in the normal course of his continuous walk with the Lord; and here he is writing when that revelation, so far as his earthly course is concerned, is practically full, and out of that these words occur - "the gospel of the glory of... God"; "the gospel of your salvation"; "the mystery of the gospel". You note that his letter to the Ephesians opens with the second of these phrases and closes with the third. The point is that these are not two different gospels - the gospel of your salvation, and the mystery of the gospel. They are not the gospel divided into two. They are one gospel, and they are both gathered into that other fragment - "the gospel of the glory of... God". What I desire to indicate is that the gospel is a much profounder thing than is generally recognised.

Oh, how full is that word "mystery" as used by the Apostle! It is a tremendous word in its significance. As you know from this letter to the Ephesians, the "mystery" relates to the deep and hidden counsels and purposes of God before the world was. It relates to something ever present to the mind of God through all previous ages, though undisclosed - waiting for the day in which He should bring it out as a revealed secret; and in it are all those Divine counsels and purposes which find their full revelation at the end of the ages, in this dispensation, in the fullness of the times; and all that is said to be gospel, the mystery of the gospel. Yes - the gospel of your salvation is all that; something immense, unfathomable. In this one short letter alone it is all summarised in superlatives which are heaped together one upon another. You feel the Apostle is so pent up as he dwells upon this as to be very near an explosion. He cannot find words in the very rich language at his command to express himself concerning all this which he calls the mystery, the stewardship of which has been committed to him. It is tremendous.

And when he writes his letter to Timothy, he goes beyond everything in packing all the immense meaning of that into a little phrase - "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God". You want to sit down with that and think. What is the gospel? It is the gospel of the glory of God. Now, comprehend that if you can! The glory of God - fathom that if you can! If we want a key to unlock this whole marvellous disclosure, to unlock those secret counsels of the Godhead before times eternal, to unlock the mystery hidden from ages and generations, it is in one word - glory. That word alone is the key to everything from eternity to eternity.

What Glory Is

What is glory? Have you ever tried to write down what glory is? It cannot be done, and we shall look foolish whenever we try to define the glory of God. Nevertheless, with the Lord's help, let us at least approach the matter. What is glory? Before we come immediately to attempt an answer, let us say something which will indicate what a task we have, what a field we are in. To answer that question - What is glory? - from the standpoint of the Scriptures means that we shall come to the understanding of a number of other matters such as the following:-

To begin with, to understand glory will be to understand God, for He is the God of glory (Acts 7:2); and also to explain His creation intention, for right at the heart of His creation lies that word as its intention - glory, the glory of God.

Again, to answer our question will be to know the meaning of the fall. Firstly, the fall of Satan - the whole matter of glory is bound up with that; and then the fall of man, because right at the heart of man's existence in the purpose of God lies this matter of glory.

Further, it will be to know the nature and meaning of eternal life - that uncreated, Divine life which God intended man to have and which he never did have until he had it in Christ - for that life is the potentiality of glory.

Further, to know the meaning of glory will be to know the meaning of redemption, for again, redemption all circles round this one thing - glory; and I would remark, before we say any more, that whenever redemption is represented as an accomplished fact, even in type, glory is linked with it. Get the altar and the laver and everything of redemptive means in line, and the end of that line is the glory of the Shekinah in the Most Holy Place. It all issues in the glory. To understand glory will be to understand redemption.

To answer our question, What is glory? will be to explain priesthood and government in spiritual and Divine meaning, for both are always related to the glory.

And here is a little thing for you on the way! - to understand glory will be to see right through all the Scriptures. When I saw this matter of glory I got a new Bible. I thought my old Bible was very wonderful and altogether beyond me, but this put a new Bible into my hands. It will do the same for you if you see the meaning and content of just one word - glory.

It will be to apprehend and to grasp all the meaning of Christ. He is the glory of God; all the glory of God is centred and seated in Him. His whole work is connected with the glory of God. He came into this world from which the glory had departed, as the custodian of the glory of God. To understand glory will be to understand Christ.

If we apprehend the meaning of glory we shall know our calling, for we are called "unto his eternal glory" (1 Pet. 5:10), "that we should be... to the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:6). Further, we shall come to understand our vocation, our service; for what does the service of God resolve itself into, after all? All service to God and for God can be weighed as to its spiritual value by this one word - glory, the glory of God.

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"The Blessed God"

Well then, all this that we have mentioned is in this little phrase - "the gospel of the glory". The whole phrase is, "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God". That word "blessed" is not an easy one to translate into English. You know how very many times it occurs in the New Testament. It is the word with which every Beatitude begins. "Blessed are the poor in spirit". "Blessed are they that mourn"; etc. (Matt. 5:3-10). Elsewhere in the New Testament the word is translated "happy". Truly it is that in the Beatitudes. "Happy are the meek", and so on. But you hesitate to use that word in connection with God - "the gospel of the glory of the happy God." That hardly sounds right to our ears; but you might perhaps catch something even inside of that. God is in the place and state of great blessedness. Are you not always asking the Lord to bless you and yours? What do you mean? Oh, to be put into a position and condition of complete satisfaction: where everything is just as you would have it: where you have all fullness to live upon for yourself, and to dispense to others. That is a happy position to be in. "It is more happy to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35); there is the same word. It is very happy, very blessed, to be in a position to give; and God is in that position. All fullness is His, and He has limitless resources to give. What a happy position! "The happy, the blessed, God."

Now let us take another step. It is "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God". It is the good news of the glory of God Who is full to overflowing with all resources of wisdom, power, grace, truth - everything. Out from such a God the gospel, the good news, comes. I say this gospel of salvation is an immense thing. What do you mean by salvation and the gospel? Well, being delivered from the guilt and condemnation and consequences of sin (here, and mostly hereafter) and perhaps some other blessings, such as assurance, thrown in! But in that you have only touched the fringe of the gospel! I say again, it is not an extra gospel, a second gospel, it is one; and if that full gospel had been preached, there would be a very different situation in the world today from what there is. The trouble is the smallness of the gospel preached. It is the gospel, the good news, of the glory of the God Who is all-sufficient in Himself and for everything else - the blessed God.

Glory Linked With the Character of God

Now we will get nearer to the word. Glory - what is glory? Well, the Greek root of this word means proving by testing. There is one little passage which will help us a good deal, and it is in 1 Pet. 1:7. If you were reading that in the Greek you would find in that verse three words which have the same beginning, indicating that they contain a common idea. Here they are, emphasized:

"That the PROOF (or TRIAL) of your faith, being more precious than gold that perisheth though it is PROVED by fire, may be found unto praise and GLORY..." "Trial", "proved", "glory". Glory is something proved by testing.

What is the glory of God? You will find that the glory of God is almost invariably linked with His character; and His character is proved, established, unalloyed righteousness. He is right, He is righteous altogether, there is not the slightest shadow or suspicion of question about His perfection. And glory is linked with His character; therefore glory is the character of God shining forth in expression, the very nature of God manifested.

There are symbols, but they only help us on the way. We very often take the symbol to mean the reality. The symbol for glory is light, just as the symbol for evil and sin is darkness. The real thing is the essence of God's nature and being, and when you get that, you get what you mean by light, and that is glory. The glory of God is the essential nature of God as unquestioned righteousness shining forth.

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The Good News of God Manifested Universally

Before we go further, let us come back. What is the gospel - the 'good news' - of the glory of God? It is this, that everything is going to be like Him, everything in His universe is going to be a manifestation of Himself and His nature. We are called unto that eternal glory. Let that stand over against what we are in ourselves and see what our calling is, see how great the gospel is! What do you feel about yourself? Any hope of glory? - that is, any hope of the manifestation of unquestioned righteousness and holiness? Ah, the gospel which has come to us is good news indeed. What a possibility, what a hope! "We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is" (1 John 3:2). It is the issue of the gospel of the glory. Get hold of that. What is glory? It is God in His essential nature, unalloyed righteousness and holiness, in expression. That is the good news - you and I and all this creation to be brought into that, so that the earth shall be filled with the glory of God, not just a radiance, a phosphorescent glory, but the glory of a nature in which there is nothing that is questionable, evil, sinful - "no darkness at all". It is the hope of the gospel. That is the gospel of your salvation. That is the hope referred to by the Apostle as he has seen it in its growing fullness. He speaks of it right at the end, from his prison - "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27).

Well, we are launched out into such an immensity we really do not know what to do with it! I confess that at that point I do not know how to proceed. You see, everything tumbles on top of you. We begin with Genesis, go all the way through the whole Bible, fragment by fragment, and we find it is all centred in and circling around this matter. The Cherubim - what are they there at the gate for? (Gen 3:24). They are custodians of the glory. All the way through it is this matter. And then the Son of God is manifested, Who is "the true light" that "shineth in the darkness" (John 1:9,5) and the message which He brings is gathered up by the Apostle John in this way: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). The Son came both to manifest and to declare what God is - unquestioned, unsullied holiness and righteousness in His very nature and being. That is God, and we are called unto His eternal glory. It is something almost too big to believe, is it not?

And now the word 'hope' comes in, associated with the gospel. "Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel" (Col. 1:23). We are begotten again "unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pet. 1:3). So we could just pile it up like that. Do not such words as these hint at a tremendous prospect set before us in the gospel? It is the prospect of glory, and glory is character proved through testing.

The Trial of Faith Unto Glory

Now then, "That the proof of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perisheth though it is proved by fire, may be found unto praise and glory..." You are going through a test, an awful, fiery trial. What is happening? Well, the scum is coming to the surface and being removed, and the purity, the reality, the genuineness of your faith is being brought out through testing. The reality is being established through fiery trial, and when, through testing and trial, you have got the reality of the Divine nature established, you have glory. "Be found unto... glory." It is what is of God in us put to the test, tried, through fiery processes, and issuing in glory. It is God manifested in and through us.

In practical spiritual life it means this. God by His grace has planted in us a little germ of faith. How small and how weak it seems! But then, under Divine discipline and trial we are tested as to that faith. And as the fiery trial goes on, a good deal of ourselves comes to the surface. Is that not true? When we are in trial, a lot that is of ourselves comes to the surface. Yes, all that inherent unbelief of our nature comes up - resentment, rebellion, bitterness. Oh yes, it all comes up in the fiery trial. We do not know ourselves until we get into the fires of trial and testing. We would not believe what there is in us until we are put to the test. I heard Dr. Campbell Morgan once say that any man is capable of any sin you like to mention if only he is put into circumstances calculated to find him out. That is a terrific thing to say. You may not accept it, but that is because you have not been put into the situation. Put that in another way. You are not just going to pass through the temptations of life, be they what we think of as 'common' temptations or related to the most awful sins, without knowing that you are being tempted and therefore you could give way. The bias towards evil is all there. The Lord Jesus was only saying that sort of thing when He said, in substance, 'Moses said, Thou shalt not...; but I say, if you think about it - if you only look - it is just as bad as though you had done it' (Matt. 5:27,28). What was He meaning? - that it is in you, it is a part of you. Oh, you may think that is terrible, but I think it is glorious! Do you say, 'We cannot stand up to this; it is worse than ever; it is going to push us further down than ever. Moses is bad enough, but if we take this on, who will survive'? But I say that that is not bad but good. The Lord was not heaping condemnation upon condemnation. He was only saying, 'It is not just a matter of what you do or do not do; it is a matter of what you are, and I have come to take away what you are, not merely what you do'. That is glorious! That is the gospel of the glory, the righteousness of God which is by faith in Christ Jesus deals not simply with things that we do or refrain from doing, but gets us entirely out of the way, bringing in a new creation. That is glory; that is the hope of the gospel. Thank God, there will come a moment in the history of this universe when the last vestige of the fall will be rooted out of every one of us who trust in Christ. One moment and we shall be changed, and even this body of our humiliation will be made like unto His body of glory, a holy body, a sinless body.

Yes; we were saying it is in trial that all this self-nature comes to the surface, but it is as well that it does come to the surface. Grace deals with it, grace working through the growing knowledge of our need of Christ makes us very humble, and humility is a trait of God. Meekness is a fruit of the Spirit, it is the counter to the poison of fallen Lucifer - pride. Trial brings these things out in the grace of God, and it is found unto glory - Christ-likeness, God-likeness. Or again, in simple experience, our deep and terrible trials make us more like the Lord under His grace. They do not make people outside of Christ more like the Lord. It is only those who are under the grace of God who become more like the Lord through fiery trials. It is found unto glory, God-likeness.

I think I must stop there. I trust it is a glimpse of the greatness of our salvation, "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God." What a prospect it opens up before us! We are lost in it. But if we suffer with Him we shall be glorified together with Him (Rom. 8:17).

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Chapter 2 - The Good News of a Satisfied God

"...according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust" (1 Tim. 1:11).

"...in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, - in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:13-14).

"...with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints, and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel" (Eph. 6:18-19).

"Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle" (Ex. 40:34).

"...then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of Jehovah, so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud, for the glory of Jehovah filled the house of God" (2 Chron. 5:13-14).

"Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven... and the glory of Jehovah filled the house. And the priests could not enter into the house of Jehovah, because the glory of Jehovah filled Jehovah's house. And all the children of Israel looked on, when the fire came down, and the glory of Jehovah was upon the house" (2 Chron. 7:1-3).

"But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:39).

"The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Servant Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied before the face of Pilate" (Acts 3:13).

Let us make one or two preliminary observations as we now follow on our previous meditation with a specific point in view. We want to remember at this time that the book of the Acts sees three things - firstly, the Church born; secondly, a new dispensation inaugurated; thirdly, the gospel sent on its way to the ends of the earth. If we have those three things in mind, we shall be able rightly to grasp the significance of this wonderful phrase - "the gospel of the glory."

The Need to Understand the Meaning of Pentecost

Now in the light of our definition of the word "glory" we must approach and explain Pentecost, and in explaining Pentecost we are only explaining the Divine thought as to the dispensation in which we are living - that is, the dispensation from Pentecost or the ascension of our Lord to His return. Pentecost gives character to this dispensation. It is therefore necessary for us to know what Pentecost means. Many people have thought of it only as the advent of the Holy Spirit and empowerment for witness and service. That is rather the effect of Pentecost than the meaning. Many have gone one step further back and said that Pentecost is the expression of Christ glorified: He has been received up into glory, He is glorified at God's right hand, and because Jesus is glorified the Holy Spirit is sent forth and we have the results recorded in this book of the Acts. That is quite true, but we have to go further back still before we have a right apprehension of Pentecost, and therefore a sufficient ground for the existence of the Church, the distinctive character of this dispensation, and the preaching of the gospel of the glory of God. Why should the Church exist? why should this dispensation be different from all others? and why should the gospel be preached in all the world for a witness? These are not small matters: I suppose it would be rather difficult to get outside of them. We have to answer our enquiry in those three connections, and so, seeing that Pentecost was the inauguration of all three, we must explain Pentecost for ourselves and for present practical purposes for our very being now, and our very vocation now - and not merely as a subject of interesting Bible study.

We say that Jesus was glorified and therefore the Holy Spirit was sent. That, of course, is what is implicit in John 7:39: Jesus was not yet glorified, therefore the Holy Spirit was not yet given. But again, what is glorification from God's standpoint? Well, it has to do with this whole question of Divine righteousness; the very nature of God is involved. In the Church, in the dispensation and in the proclamation of the gospel, the very nature of God is involved. In other words, the righteousness of God is the supreme issue.

Glory Related to God's Satisfaction

Firstly, God's nature itself must be satisfied or there is no good news, no gospel. There is nothing of a joyful character to proclaim until God's own nature is fully satisfied.

But not only that: God must be satisfied along the line of His creation. We said in our previous meditation that one of those many things involved in this whole question of glory is the very existence of the creation, and of man as its crown. The governing thought of God in creating was for His glory, that is, that His glory might be expressed and manifested - that what He is in Himself might be displayed in everything that He touches, everything that emanates from Him; that He should not be just a self-contained and confined God living in the satisfaction and gratification of His own self-sufficiency. If He is love, if He is more than simply power, He must give. He must be the great Giver; He must be not only Jehovah Self-Sufficient, but Jehovah El-Shaddai, the great Pourer-Forth. He must be One out from Whom there go powers resulting in works and in definite expressions of Himself. That is creation in motive, in idea; God finding a sphere full of morally responsible people whose great desire is to satisfy Him in this matter - that He should show forth Himself in what He is in His own nature. Creation is governed by that, and God must be satisfied in that before there is anything that is the gospel of the glory of God - and of the happy God, "the blessed God," as the phrase is here: God satisfied. 'Satisfied' is a word that you can put at the beginning of all the Beatitudes. "Satisfied are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matt. 5:6); blessed, satisfied or happy. It is the gospel of the glory of the satisfied God. It is a great thing to go out with that born in your heart by the Holy Spirit - that God is satisfied, and satisfied with you and with me. Is that possible? That is precisely what you arrive at; you have no gospel to preach until you have arrived there. That is where we shall arrive, I hope, before long; that is the object in view at the moment.

Now, you see, the glorifying of the Lord Jesus is God's answer relative to the requirements of His own nature - absolute, utter, final righteousness. And it is equally His answer with reference to the conception and object of the creation. God is satisfied, and man is represented in the new creation - "We behold... Jesus... crowned with glory and honour" (Heb. 2:9). I must remind you of the use of the name "Jesus" here. This is where the use of that name by itself is right. It is habitually thus used by certain schools, as you know, thereby divesting Him of His Deity and Lordship; they always call Him simply 'Jesus'. That is wrong. But He is here called "Jesus" in a right way, because in that name He is representative of man, and "God has glorified his Servant Jesus" as representative of all who believe: Jesus glorified because God is satisfied.