Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

The Natural Man Dismissed

Of what will this new-creation collective man be made? Will he be made of Peter and Cornelius and the Ethiopian? Not at all. You see, Peter is here very much in view as an instrument, and Peter naturally, according to his earthly life, is of Jewish constitution, Jewish mentality and Jewish horizon — very much of Jewish horizon by reason of his very blood and his birth and his upbringing. He is horizoned by Judaism, by Israel. That is how he is constituted. Cornelius — well, he is very Gentile-constituted. He is Roman, and he is very Roman, or he would not be a centurion. He certainly would not be in that place without being a Roman of the Romans. You know how these centurions were selected, on what grounds they were appointed. They were magnificent men, humanly speaking, splendid specimens, the best specimens of Roman life and training and discipline, and very thoroughly devoted to Roman interests. This man, being in Caesarea, is not a centurion of an outpost. He is at the heart of Roman influence in that part of the world, so that he is naturally Romanly constituted.

What we find, therefore, is not that these two men are brought into Christ just as Peter and Cornelius, but that they are disintegrated, broken up, broken down, put out, as to what they are naturally. They are born from another country, from above, brought into the kingdom of Heaven, brought into the “new creation man”, the church, where there is “neither Jew nor Greek” nor Roman nor Gentile, but “all... one man in Christ” (Gal. 3:28), and “Christ is all” (Col. 3:11). You notice that even Peter has to be broken down, disintegrated, when he allows what is natural in his constitution to begin to influence his judgments and cause him to argue with the Lord. A transition has to take place in him, from the point at which he was commanded by the Lord to rise, kill and eat, and he said, “Not so, Lord” (verse 14) — a transition had to take place, under this mighty breaking down of the Holy Spirit, to the point where he said, “He is Lord of all” (verse 36). Notice, not only of the Jews — “Lord of ALL”. That meant something very drastic in Peter’s case, but it had to be done.

And so far as Cornelius is concerned — I shall say a little more about him presently — it is quite clear that in the issue of this he became a man governed not by Rome but by the Holy Spirit; under the influence not of what was natural but of what was spiritual; not earthly but heavenly. For you notice that the Heavens were opened — the Spirit of God from Heaven fell on them, and in so doing made them different. But they both had to be broken down in what they were naturally, and formed again, another vessel, not according to nature but according to Christ.

The Spiritual Education of the Born-again

Now just one further glance at Peter in this connection. Peter had already been born from above, he was already in the kingdom of Heaven, he was already under the government of the Holy Spirit, but even with such people as Peter — and none of us would claim to compare with him — the Lord will not allow any of the old natural influences to arise and control judgments and movements. Those influences have to be put back, there has to be still fuller, deeper conformity to the image of the Man who is not this or that, but is different altogether from all the rest. You and I must remember that, though we are born again, we are not permitted to allow our natural judgments, standards, conceptions or mentality about people to influence us. We have to get Heaven’s estimate.

And what a revolutionary thing that is! Consider for a moment the contents of this sheet that was let down to Peter: four-footed creatures, reptiles, birds — and the inference is that they are “unclean” birds naturally — just the very things that were forbidden in Leviticus 11 to be eaten by the Jews. And Peter is informed that Heaven’s point of view is altogether different from his. Although he may have the most utter conviction about this matter and his mentality may judge this people to be altogether outside the pale of the kingdom of Heaven, Heaven’s view is quite different, completely different. Peter has got to learn not only what it means to be born from above, but what it means to be conformed to the likeness of the Man above.

There is a great deal to be done in all of us about this matter. We are so influenced by our own constitution, by our own make-up, by our own natural outlook, mentality or training, and we think God has got to come into line with that, conform to that and accept that. But the Lord is teaching us the very hard lesson that He does not accept our mentality at all, He does not accept our standards, He repudiates much that is a strong conviction with us, even religiously, and demands of us things that “religiously” we would never do. That perhaps needs a little safeguarding, but I say it within the right realm and the right limits. What it amounts to is that when the Holy Spirit comes in we have to go out of court. He must be allowed to have His mind about things and people and ways and means, for He is not going to accept ours. Peter, as Peter naturally, will have to be set aside. It is a large part of our education.

And if that was true of Peter, it was of course much more true of Cornelius, because he was not yet born from above. He has got to be born from above — to cease to be Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and simply become a man in Christ. Thank God, there were all the possibilities of that with Cornelius. God had an open way with him.

Well, the Holy Spirit obliterated Peter and Cornelius and put Jesus in their place. That is what it amounts to, that is what He was working toward. But you see, the whole dominating objective is this divine conception of a man as gathered up in the Person of Jesus Christ, a new creation man in Himself. His purpose is to gather into Himself, not OF all nations, but OUT of all nations — there is a profound difference — to gather out of all nations that which will compose and comprise the collective new creation man. Let us therefore at once be ready to be stripped of all our national prejudices, to let go all those things which govern our attitudes and judgments. Let us be free for them to go, to leave us. Let us seek very much, earnestly and continually, to “know no man after the flesh”, but to know only Christ, to cleave to Christ, to make everything of Christ in one another.

Oh, may God give me, and give you, grace to make more of Christ — even when we may feel there is only a very little of Him — in other people. Fasten on to that measure, small though it may be, and make that the all-important, paramount thing. It is an absolute essential in our apprehension of the Body of Christ, and that is the very work of the Holy Spirit in this dispensation. If the Holy Spirit is in us and we know anything about registering the movement, the voice, the influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, when we pass a wrong judgment upon someone else or take more account of that which they are naturally than of Christ in them, we shall meet a rebuke, we shall sense a displeasure of the Holy Spirit. Ask the Lord to make you sensitive to the Holy Spirit in this matter, that Christ may grow and grow. We do make it difficult for Christ to grow in other people. We do get in the way of the Lord Jesus. We do tie Him up, because we do not seek to release Him and make the most of Him in one another. We are so ready to fasten upon the things that run counter to our prejudices and contrary to our ideas of what ought to be. Let us make more of the Lord Jesus. That is the setting of this tenth chapter of Acts, in its dispensational meaning and its supreme concern.

[Shammu]

The Need of the Naturally Morally Good for Salvation

In conclusion, I want to indicate briefly the bearing of this word upon the preaching of the Gospel. There are many aspects of the Gospel application of all that is going on in the book of the Acts. Take this man Cornelius. There are some grand things said about Cornelius. He is a very devout man, he honours God, he is a man who prays to God; he is a man of practical charity, he gives alms — that means he has the interests of other people at heart, he is not living to himself. As you look at him naturally, he is a fine man, characterized by an honest and pure spirit — there is no doubt about it. We wish everybody were as ready as Cornelius was to respond, to answer without argument, without prejudice. He was a fine specimen of a man: I expect physically he was that; certainly he was that morally, mentally and religiously.

And yet — and yet — Heaven and earth are combining in a mighty movement to get that man SAVED. Everybody would say, “That is surely enough; that man honours God, he is a God-fearing man, he prays, he puts his religion into practical expression. That man is unselfish, he is generous, he is kind in his actions, he cares for other people, he is full of charitable works: what more do you want? That man is going to Heaven, if any man is!” And yet, I say again, Heaven moves, and Heaven moves earth: the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the great dispensation, on the one side; on the other side, angels at work, co-operating. For what purpose? — to get such a man saved. He is not yet born again, he has not yet received the Holy Spirit. With all, he does not know the Lord Jesus in a personal way. He knows about Him. Peter says so. “You know all about what happened, you know the story of Jesus of Nazareth; but you do not know Him personally.”

Well, what are you going to make of that? That is not my interpretation, that is not my Gospel, that is not my prejudice: that is the clear statement. If anything could be more vivid, tell me what it is! Here is the point. Why, as I put it earlier, all this excitement, all this “paraphernalia”, all these extraordinary things? Why does Peter go up to the housetop and pray at 12 o’clock, and then want his dinner terribly, so badly that he sends downstairs and asks them to get something ready, and Heaven comes in and takes hold of his very hunger to make him to understand, appreciate, heavenly things, taking occasion by this to give this vision? What is all this about? Why should an angel go up there to Caesarea and visit Cornelius and speak to him, and why should it be necessary for him to send men and a soldier all the way from Caesarea down to Joppa — 35 miles — and then for Peter to have to take the long journey back? Why all this, if this man is such a good man and is going to get through all right?

No, the new creation is something much more than religion, than praying, than giving alms, than being charitable. Christ is much more than that; the Holy Spirit is after more than that. You may say, “I do not agree — I believe if you do your duty and you are kind and you recognise God and you go to church you will get through all right”. You take this account and read it again. This is a positive denial of any such thing, and to settle down in such a position is to assume something which is not true. There are many in the position of assumed salvation, and there will be for them a very great undeceiving unless something happens. This is not enough. The Spirit of God takes great pains to get even a Cornelius — as he did also with another devout man, the Ethiopian, who had been up to Jerusalem to worship God. Likewise Saul of Tarsus, a man who was utterly devoted to what he believed to be God’s will, God’s way. The Holy Spirit — Heaven — comes in in mighty power to get these people saved. Salvation is a very big thing, far transcending religion and a good moral character and many kindly activities. Salvation is far more than that.

But, thank God, Cornelius was prepared. Here is something very precious about it all. You may be like that — you may not be one of those who could be classed as an outrageous sinner and criminal and offender, marked by all those things which society calls bad. You may be God-fearing, you may pray, you may be doing many kind things; and yet, like Cornelius, you may still have, somewhere deep down, the feeling that there is something more. “I am after something, I am reaching out for something; I do not know what it is, but I feel I need something more; all my praying and all my doing is only an expression of a longing for something — I want to get somewhere that I have not yet got!” That was Cornelius, and God took account of it and worked to see that he got what he needed and what his heart longed for. When Cornelius heard it, he instantly responded, and in effect said, “This is just what I have been after! I did not know what it was, but this is it! This answers my longing, this answers my praying, this meets my deeply-felt need!” The very story at its end seems to say that. Oh, how full of joy and thankfulness they were! God had been doing something in preparation.

It may be that you who read these lines are prepared for something God has for you — you do not know what it is. Do not be deceived by the fact that you pray and go to church, even that you attend Christian conferences or do kind things. Do not be deceived. Be sure that you are positively born again — that you have received the Holy Spirit into your life, as a living Person, and know that He is there. Do not rest until that is true — otherwise there will be a grievous awakening and disillusionment. Do not assume anything. Demand that you KNOW. The basis of your knowledge is the present, instant indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It may be that some longing of yours, some hunger, some unexplained and inexplicable feeling of need in you is just God’s way of preparing you for what He offers, what He presents, and what He may be saying to you at this very moment. There is something more, and you will find that “something” when you receive the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of the Man in the glory. That Man is God’s satisfaction, and therefore He will be our satisfaction too.

[Shammu]

Chapter 6 - God's Standard of Judgment

Reading: Revelation 2:3

Seven is the governing number of this whole book of the Revelation. We have the seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, seven angels, seven spirits of God, and so on. We know that seven is the number which speaks of completeness and fullness. God ended His works and rested from all His labours on the seventh day. The seventh is the sign of completeness: the works were complete. So that when we come to seven churches, we at once find ourselves in the presence of something which is being judged as a whole, in completeness — the completeness of the church in itself and the completeness of the church in all time. I am not staying with those details of biblical exposition which are familiar to everybody. This is not an exposition of the book of the Revelation, and so we are not touching on any of the theories which have been propounded, such as whether these seven churches represent seven stages in the dispensation, and so on. That does not concern me at all just now, and I do not think it should concern us so much as it has done, because theories as to times are quite unnecessary here. At any given time you will find conditions such as marked all these churches. You may find them all simultaneously in different parts of the church. In the church scattered over the earth today, different parts may be marked by all these things which are found here in the sevenfold message. So we can dismiss those technicalities and say that what is really being brought into view is that the church as a whole, in itself and for all time, is being interrogated by this Man, and by the standard which He represents as the Man according to God’s heart, whom God has made the horizon of all judgment.

The Lord’s Unalterable Standard

The next thing with which we find ourselves confronted is this. As we come to the sevenfold message to the church, we are brought right to the very heart of God’s purpose. We are compelled to take account of one thing, and that one thing is that the Lord will not accept a lesser standard than His full thought for the church. However we may cringe, however much we may dislike that, however much we may try to get round it, here it is. The Lord will not accept anything less than His full thought concerning His church, and He is going to have it. We shall see, as we go on, that He may not have it, in the first instance or at the beginning, in the whole church, but He will have it somewhere. That is the heart of things.

Many difficulties and questions may arise in this connection. When there is a presentation of God’s full thought concerning His church — when we come to these wonderful revelations of the eternal counsels and purposes as we have them in some of the later letters of Paul, and when they are presented, expounded, explained to us, and the Lord throws light upon them and shows how great, how perfectly astounding and marvellous are His conceptions concerning His church, and what that involves and necessitates — our immediate reaction, and in a sense a very natural one, is, “But only one in a thousand sees it, one in a thousand has any apprehension of it! And as for entering in, going on, coming to expression of it — well, look at the church! Where do you find it?” And because that is true, alternatives have been sought and back-doors have been fled to.

Now, the fact is this — and I bid you to confirm or, if you can do otherwise, repudiate this by the Word. The fact is that, in the Word of God, God has never made provision for anything less. You say, “Well, what is going to happen to all the other people who have not seen it, or who have had it presented and just do not accept it and will not go on? What is going to happen?” The Lord does not give a provisional revelation, that, if they do not — well, it is all right, He will be comparatively satisfied, He will accept the situation simply because He cannot do otherwise, He will make the best of a bad job. There is nothing like that at all. There is plenty to indicate that failure to go on to the fullness involves in very serious loss, very serious consequences; if not in the loss of salvation, at least the loss of the great purpose of salvation. There is plenty there, but nowhere will you find the Lord saying, “Well, we will put this lot of people into a second category, and be quite satisfied with them where they are.” The Lord always keeps His full standard in view, and says, “That is what I am after, and I will never be satisfied unless I have it. Satisfaction for Me is found only in fullness, in completeness.”

That is the real upshot of these messages. While there is so much that is good in the churches, so much commendable, the Lord does not settle down and say, “Well, that is very good, very nice; I will be content with that, I will be satisfied with that.” Men very often have to do that, but God never. There is no provision for a lower standard and no reprieve given to a lesser measure. He holds us to the fullness of His original intention. So He presents the church, not with a second-level challenge but with a first-level challenge. He is judging here — not in a second man of an inferior type: He is still judging in the Man who is complete and perfect before God. That is God’s horizon.

The next thing — perhaps, in the light of some people’s ideas, this needs to be said — is that these churches are composed of Christians. There has been a theory put forth that these are only professing Christians and not real Christians; that these are professing churches, not real churches. Well, I am not accepting that. These are churches with a history, a spiritual history, and the challenge is on the ground of that from which they have fallen, that which they have lost, and that which they have let in. They are Christians. “Thou didst leave thy first love. Remember... whence thou art fallen”. “Thou sufferest the woman Jezebel”. (2:4,5,20). They have a history, a spiritual history. They are not merely professors. It is what they have allowed to happen to them and amongst them. So this is not just an attempt to get people saved. It is an effort to get Christians where they ought to be. That of course is very simple. I am quite sure it hardly needs to be emphasized, but we take it on the way to the objective in view.

[Shammu]

Distinctions Made by God Among Christians

And here we come to something which is of course the ground of much controversy, but about which we have to be very bold and take the consequences. This book of the Revelation reveals clearly and unmistakably, distinctions and divisions made by God amongst Christians. God makes distinctions and God makes divisions, and the whole book is full of that fact. These divisions are not the schisms in the church, the divisions in the church, with which we are so unhappily familiar, but God’s divisions, God’s distinctions — yes, God’s separations. There are distinctive companies here, indicated by various titles and designations.

There are “overcomers” and they are distinct from the rest. There is a “firstfruits” company, and you will find that they are distinct from the rest. The very word and title itself would have no meaning if there were not a “second-fruits” — if there were not others. There is the “hundred and forty-four thousand”, a distinctly marked out company, different from the rest. There is the “bride”, and language does not mean anything if that which is meant by the bride comprises all. There are those who are “bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb”. They are not the bride. I could follow that very closely. If the Lord wills, we shall devote our next study to this matter of the bride. But my point at the moment is this, that here in this book there are distinctive companies, there are divisions made by God between His own people — believers — and they are marked out in the main by spiritual measure. Spiritual measure determines their distinctiveness.

Distinction According to Spiritual Measure

What is the meaning of firstfruits, if it does not mean that they are ripened before the harvest, before the rest? You have only to go to the Old Testament for that. The sheaf of the firstfruits was that which ripened before all the rest and was brought in as a token of what was to follow. Ripeness indicates spiritual measure. It does not say that the others will not come to that — do not misunderstand me. It does not mean that others will not follow on and come. But it does mean that here are those who are earlier satisfying God’s standards, who have matured more quickly, who have responded more readily, who are spiritually leading the way. They are not an “elect of the elect”, they are not people who are exclusive. They are representative: yet they are at the same time distinctive, because they have more readily and more quickly come to that place of satisfying God’s heart, and that of course has involved them in particular and peculiar difficulties, adversities, sufferings and conflicts.

But again to our point: there are these, and there are the rest. THESE are not ALL. They are something distinct in themselves. I do not think we can get away from that, if we honestly face this book in a spiritual way. We cannot escape this fact, that God marks out people as distinct according to their spiritual measure, according to how far they satisfy His fullest revealed mind. And those people will come to a particular position, will be invested with a greater measure of glory, will be entrusted with administration. These are all things which follow. That is what the Lord is set upon, and that is what this book clearly reveals. So that these distinctive companies in the first place represent an approximation to the characteristics of the full revelation in the Man in chapter 1: they are like Him, they partake of those characteristics which we have studied; and, secondly, they enter on to the vocation of the Man in the glory: spiritual administration now, and both spiritual and literal administration later.

[Shammu]

God’s Concept in Creating Man

So we are brought to this, that the dealings and judgments of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit in the church must be viewed in the light of the full conception and purpose which has been presented. These dealings must be considered in the light of the revealed purpose in fullness. Now inasmuch as it is the new-creation Man who is governing everything personally, and the concept of the new-creation man corporately that is governing all these judgments, we find much light thrown upon things from the first creation, which was a material, temporal, earthly representation of heavenly principles. We mentioned this earlier.

a) God-likeness

What was the concept that governed God in creating man? What is man intended to mean, to BE in his very being? “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. He is intended to set forth what God is like in His own Being and Person. That is the governing concept of man. The first man failed of it; the last Adam achieves it, reveals it, manifests it. This Man is tested, tried and proved to the very last degree; tested as to obedience, love, faithfulness unto death, even the death of the cross; and He comes up as the Man who wholly satisfies God, in showing what God is like. So that, when you look at this Man, you can say, “Now, that is what God is like.” When you hear this Man speaking, you say, “That is what God is like.” You hear Him giving some of His illustrations and parables, such as that of the Good Samaritan. The priest passed by on the other side, and so did the Levite, and the Lord Jesus is saying, in effect, “God is not like that — that is exactly what God is NOT like!” But then comes the Good Samaritan, as he is called, and he crosses the road and takes in the need and distress of this poor fellow, and delivers him, brings him home and pays for his needs. The Lord Jesus is saying, in effect, “That is what God is like.”

Or take the prodigal, with the elder brother representing the Jewish conception of God. The implication is: that is not what God is like. God is so different. This poor fellow who is worthless, who has no claims whatever, who has forfeited every right — a wastrel — the Father does not just pity him, and say, “Come home, you rascal, I will give you a bed and a corner”; no, he lavishes everything upon him and goes as far as he can possibly go, as though to one who had not failed him, but had completely satisfied him. And the Lord Jesus is saying, in effect, “That is what God is like.” So you look at Him in His Person, in His manner of life, in His teaching, and you have this contrast — what God is like and what God is not like. That is what is making people so miserable, so unhappy, so enraged — they feel what a poor picture they are in the presence of this Man and what He says. They make right deductions when they conclude that He has said this about them, against them. They are right.

Here, then, in the Revelation, He is brought out in all the completeness of the Man made in the image and likeness of God; and that is governing — the whole corporate new man. I want to press this as a very real part of this message, for if we take what is said merely as teaching, interpretation, and so on, it will all be of no profit. We have got to be motivated by this primary consideration: that in the new-creation man, which we are in Christ, the thing that God is looking for, is His own likeness. What matters most is not how much teaching we possess, how much Bible knowledge we have, how much work we do. What matters is: How much is the Lord manifested? It should really engage us continually. This should be the basis of our self-judgment, of a right kind. “That was not Christ, that was not like the Lord, this is not like the Lord.”

“Ministry” is the cause of so much trouble. “My ministry”, getting a place for our ministry, being able to fulfil our ministry. Oh, let it drop. The Lord will test us on this matter. Are we going to hold on to our ministry, our place, what we believe to be our divine calling — hold to it in the strength and tenacity of our own will, our own fleshly conviction that that is what God has called us to? Oh, no! If God has called us to anything, He will hold us into it, and we must let go to Him if there arises a situation in which that is necessary. The Lord will see that the ministry is fulfilled and the position occupied that He wants for us. The thing that is far more than the ministry, and out of which the ministry must come, is that I should be a Christlike man, and that you should be a Christlike man; and we can show Christlikeness in just letting others get into our place in ministry, being very meek about it, not fighting to keep our position. The Lord will look after the rest. “The meek shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). That is God’s word. The image of the Lord is the all-governing matter.

b) Spiritual government

Then — “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion.” Now, dominion issues from likeness. We are not talking about offices and appointments. We are talking about spiritual matters: for dominion now is a spiritual matter. That is obvious, of course. Dominion with us is not at present temporal. But dominion is none the less a very pertinent matter. This word in Genesis — “Let them have dominion” — is the earthly, material, temporal representation of the spiritual reality, and the spiritual reality of which it is only a representation is found in Ephesians 6: “principalities and powers”, “world rulers of this darkness”, “hosts of wicked spirits”. And the church is seated together with Christ in the heavenlies, “far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named” (Eph. 2:6; 1:20,21). There is a proposition for you and for me! It is a question of dominion in the spiritual realm, the church’s dominion in the spiritual realm. This man, this new-creation man, is to have it, and we are brought into it in a spiritual way in Christ.

Now, you see, it is just here that our education is so much at stake, so much involved. There are numerous situations which the enemy projects. Why did the Lord let Satan come into that garden? The Lord knew all that was involved. Why did He let him get in there? Just for the very purpose of giving the man the chance to exercise his dominion, because the Lord knows quite well that back of the material is the spiritual, back of the world and flesh is always the devil. You have not conquered when you have only mastered material things. You are only at the beginning of conquest then. It is the spiritual forces behind. Men are — to some limited extent — mastering the material today, but God only knows how they are being defeated by the spiritual lying behind the material.

I am saying that the Lord allows the enemy to precipitate and project all kinds of situations and conditions and difficulties — situations in the home, situations in the business, situations in the church, situations in our personal, private and secret experience. They are devil-projected, satanic in origin, though not always seen to be so. But you calculate what they will do if they triumph, and you will see that there is something sinister about them. And the Lord allows them! What are we going to do about it? Begin to pray and plead with the Lord to take this difficulty away, change this situation? Nothing happens. We try to fight and get on top of it by being optimistic, being hopeful, being cheerful. We do not get very far. We may indeed just get worn out, and still nothing happens. What is the meaning of this? It means that we are in the school of rulers, in training to be made rulers. The whole destiny and vocation of the new man is at stake in these situations. We had better settle it quite soon that we are in this very matter of having dominion, and that this situation is something that has to be dealt with on a spiritual level, from a heavenly position.

But the great effort of the enemy is to get us so involved morally that we have no fighting power left, because he has the right to the position. He is trying to destroy our testimony, destroy our vocation, destroy this very calling to have dominion, by getting us involved in a situation where the Lord cannot come to our rescue. He says: “You have got to get out of that, repudiate that, put that back, before anything will happen. You have become caught in something wrong, and until you break clear of that, you are defeated; I cannot do anything for you.” Some of you may be thinking, “This is a Christianity that is very complex, very difficult!” Need it be stressed that we are not now speaking of our salvation? We are moving in a realm altogether beyond “simple salvation” — although salvation is never a simple thing. This is not a matter of our being saved from hell, having eternal life and going to heaven. This is the great eternal purpose of God, centred in His Son personal and corporate. This is the central conception and idea of God in making man to have dominion. So that in future let us as quickly as we can face whatever situation may be exercising or perplexing us, and say, “Is this something in which I am to exercise my position in Christ, as above this, as over this — to bring this thing under my feet, in Christ as the exalted Man?” For we inherit with Him the dominion that He has taken since God has “made us to sit with him in the heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6).

The judgments, then, and dealings of the Lord with His people are in the light, firstly, of the likeness, and secondly of the dominion. The question for these churches in the Revelation is not whether they are Christians and are going to Heaven. It is the question of how they are reigning in life, how they are exercising spiritual dominion in the spiritual world.

[Shammu]

c) Fruitfulness

The next thing about the new-creation man is this: “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them... and called THEIR name Man” (Gen. 5:1,2). He said to them: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (1:28). So the new-creation man is related to Christ, or is the functioning of Christ, in reproduction after his own kind. This is a test. The idea of stagnation has no place in the things of God. Anything that draws a circle, that is limited to a smaller sphere than that of continuous development, continuous growth, continuous expansion, continuous reproduction, is contrary to the thought of God. Reproduction is a law of the creation, and in the new creation it is that. In the book of the Acts, you see this thing at work. The new-creation man has come in truly — and look at the multiplication and the reproduction after his own kind! This is the calling, and this is the ground of testing and judgment: Are there those, and more of them, in this world, who are in existence as the result of our spiritual travail, as the result of our spiritual life passed on? Or are we just alone, just individuals, trying to be Christians on our own? That is not God’s thought. Reproduction cannot be in that way. The word at the beginning was: “replenish the earth”; and God knows it needs replenishing with children of God after this kind — the kind of this Man.

d) God-blessed and a blessing

Finally, for the present: “And God blessed them” (Gen. 1:28). They were not only to be blessed but to be a blessing. Very simple in terms, but how wonderful. This world does not know what a blessing the church is to it in its midst. It will be a sorry day for the world when the church has gone. Just as truly as Joseph was a blessing in the house of Pharaoh, so the church is a blessing in this world, if the world only knew it. But it must not only be so in that unrecognised way. God forgive us that we are not the blessing in the world and to the world that we ought to be; that is, that the world has a good deal of reason to feel that the church is not worth very much. But we will leave that. It must also be that our presence here is a blessing to others. This is a real test. Are we a blessing? Is the blessing of the Lord resting upon us so that we are made a blessing? I think it is one of the loveliest things that we come across in our Christian fellowship, when we are able to hear someone say, “So-and-so is a blessing to me.” That is how it ought to be: we ought to be a blessing to people. Very often we are a bother to one another! Yes, “God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply”: that is to say, reproduce a blessed people, be a blessing unto multiplication.

God’s Standard of Judgment

These are the things which are governing the judgment of the church at all times right on to the end — likeness to the Lord, spiritual government, reproduction in Christ, growth and a blessing, and you can apply that to these seven churches. “Now then, with all that you have and all you are doing and all your profession, what is the measure of your revelation of what God is like? What is the measure of your absolute dominion over evil forces?” We collapse in so many instances before the evil forces which have got inside. “What is the measure of your increase, your spiritual reproduction?” May that not touch the very point of first love with Ephesus? What a centre Ephesus was as a church at the beginning, radiating blessing to all in Asia! What increase came through Ephesus! May it not be perhaps that Ephesus had become something in itself, turned in upon itself — occupied with itself, its own works, its own profession and reputation? And how is it with you in being a real blessing where you are, to all near and far — a real blessing? It is that to which the Lord is really challenging and with which He is concerned.

So this Man, who is the image, who has the dominion, who shall see His seed, who has brought so many children to birth, who has been such a blessing in this world, says, “I want that it shall be like that with the corporate new man — just like that. That is what you are called unto. That is the meaning of your existence.” Now you do recognise that that is not just Bible exposition. It is a real spiritual challenge to us, it really is. You are going to meet this — we are all going to come up against this. “Was that like the Lord? Was that Christlike?” Very simple; but you see it is an ultimate thing. “Has the enemy got the upper hand there, or have you stood and withstood and kept him from his objective, reigned in life, kept on top, maintained your position?” We are found out. “How much result is there of our spiritual life in reproduction?” It is a challenge. “How much a blessing are we?” Oh, if only we measured up to that last point alone, if every one of us were a blessing in the church where we are, a blessing on this earth, what a difference it would make!

May the Lord truly conform to the image of His Son.

[Shammu]

Chapter 7 - The Bride

“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2).

“Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:7-9).

“The Spirit and the bride say, Come” (Rev. 22:17).

“Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body... the church is subject to Christ... Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish... we are members of his body. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church” (Eph. 5:23, 25-27, 30-32).

It would be good for us, as we approach this subject, to do a little forgetting: to forget, for the time being, any theories that we may have heard or accepted under the designation of the bride of Christ. There are crystallized theories on this matter. There are those who believe the bride is Israel. There are others who believe that the church is not the bride and the bride is not the church — they are two distinct and different entities, and so on. Will you kindly order them out for the time being — not in order to accept a new theory, but in order to be open for anything that the Lord may have to say at this time. Please give the Lord the benefit of an open heart and mind.

It would also be good for us to try to get away from the symbolism of this book of the Revelation, a very difficult thing to do, because it is a book that is just full of symbols and symbolisms. But let us try to forget the symbols — even the symbol of the bride, in that actual word — and let us seek earnestly to get to the meaning. It is easy to be so occupied with the symbol that we miss the meaning.

Three Main Ministries in the New Testament

To begin with, let me remind you that in the New Testament there are three main phases, or ministries.

There is the phase of what we may call INITIATION; that is, the gathering of the material for the House of God. That is a very prominent phase in the book of the Acts — the reaching out to, and laying hold of, those who are to compose and constitute the church.

Then there is the second phase or ministry of the BUILDING of that material: the building up, to use Paul’s phrase, of the Body of Christ; and that is wrapped up with Paul’s letters — the teaching ministry which follows the gathering. The building up proceeds after the material has been secured and as it is being brought in.

But then there is a third phase, a third ministry. It is that which comes in with the last parts of the New Testament, and mainly through the ministry of John — though not altogether, for Jude was engaged in this, and James to some extent; but mainly in John’s letters, and pre-eminently in the book of the Revelation — the ministry of MEASURING UP, measuring up to all that has been given; a RECALL ministry, where there has been loss, falling away, departure, declension; and a ministry of JUDGMENT — judgment not in the sense of passing judgment only, but judgment in the sense of making clear where things have gone wrong, and warning concerning the delinquent state.

These, then, are the three phases of the ministry of the New Testament, and there is the sovereignty of the Lord marking each one of them.

The Sovereignty of the Lord in Relation to the Ministries

We saw previously the sovereign activities of the Spirit of Jesus in laying hold of, apprehending, the material for the House of God. We saw a wonderful combination of heavenly, angelic forces, and the Holy Spirit, in sovereign activities to secure the material of which the church is made. There is no mistaking the sovereignty at work in that phase of the New Testament.

There is likewise a sovereignty observable and very patent in connection with the second part — that is, the securing, raising up, equipping, endowing of those who are to fulfil the ministry of building up the Body of Christ — personal gifts of the ascended Lord in sovereign action, qualification by the Holy Spirit unto the many-sided ministry by which the church should be brought to full growth.

But the sovereignty is very much in evidence, too, in the third phase. It is evident in the statements at the beginning of the book of the Revelation. “I John,... was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (1:9). And what happened? He says that things that were given to Jesus by the Father, “the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him”, were sent, were brought by an angel, by a special messenger, and “signified... unto his servant John” (1:1). If that is not sovereign action, what is? That is Heaven moving, and it is related to this ministry of measuring up, recall, judgment.

Note, moreover, that it was measuring up to the full revelation that God had given. These messages were addressed in the first place to the seven churches in Asia, and it was to the churches in Asia that the fullest revelation through the apostle Paul was given. Ephesus, Laodicea, and the rest, were the churches which were brought into being through this very apostle, who was so sovereignly raised up and equipped for the fullest unveiling of eternal counsels that we have in the Bible. It was concerning that fullness of unveiled divine thought that the book of the Revelation was brought in, sovereignly to recall to that, to judge concerning that; to deal with the Lord’s people in the light, not of some partial truth, but of the whole revelation of God’s mind.

My point is that it was sovereignly done; and God, who is sovereign, does determine the ministry that is to be fulfilled and by whom it is to be fulfilled, and there is a place in the sovereign purposes and activities of God for a ministry that is a recall ministry. This is a ministry of measuring up, and that particularly characterizes the end times, as is clearly seen here.

[Shammu]

The Bride Expresses the Fullest Thought of God Concerning His Son

Now, as we said in our previous meditation, there are seen, in the book of the Revelation, distinctive and particular companies who represent something very much more of the Lord than the rest, and of those various companies, or those various titles which we mentioned — overcomers, the hundred and forty-four thousand, first-fruits, man child, and so on — of all these titles, it seems to me that the one that gets nearest to the heart of God is that which is called “the bride”. The bride undoubtedly, from every description and presentation and implication, embodies and expresses the fullest thought of the Father concerning the Son. We could gather a very great deal into that — Old Testament type and figure — as to the Father’s concern for His Son’s bride. You will recall, for instance, the story of Abraham, Isaac and Rebekah. But we cannot stay for details. We just make the statement, which you can verify, that, out of all the titles mentioned, it is the bride who embodies and expresses the fullest thought of the Father for the Son.

That which is signified by the bride is, indeed, the first and the governing idea of the entire Trinity — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Father, for the Son, is governed by this thought supremely — to provide His Son with a bride. What was true in the first creation, humanly, literally, is transcendently true in the new creation, the Heavenly Man. God says that it is not good for Him to be alone. To provide Him with a bride is the Father’s greatest interest in the Son.

The concern of the Son for His bride, the church, is self-evident; we shall see more concerning that presently.

As to the Holy Spirit, that is His very work in this dispensation. We were speaking earlier of this being the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. He has come to secure that bride for the Son, and is pursuing that purpose, and in this sevenfold reiteration, “what the Spirit saith to the churches”, you have implicit His concern to get the church on bridal terms with the Son. The active operations in the book of the Revelation begin with that sevenfold word: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.” It is reiterated seven times — “what the Spirit saith”. And the last thing in the book is: “The Spirit and the bride say, Come.” Everything between, so far as the people of God are concerned, is the Spirit’s mighty working to secure this bride for the Son. In that last word, which we shall consider later, is found the great joy of the Spirit at the end. “All is ready for you! The work is done; the object is secured. Come!”

Christ’s Love, and Giving of Himself, For the Church

This object is found in a specific way in the cross of the Lord Jesus. The cross of the Lord Jesus is a very comprehensive thing and has many sides in its value and function. It has to do with sin, sin’s judgment, sin’s remission. It has to do with death and death’s annihilation for the church. It has to do with Satan, the prince of the world, and his casting out. It has to do with redemption, atonement, justification, and all sides of salvation. They are all in the cross. Then the apostle put his finger upon a specific meaning of the cross when he said: “Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.” When Christ went to the cross, while all these other things were being effected and were included, this central thing was being secured. He gave Himself for the church.

This throws us back to some of His own parables. We recall the parable of the treasure in the field, when the whole field was purchased to secure that treasure. Or we think of the parable of the pearl of great price, and the merchant who makes everything that he has subservient to securing that pearl. I once went through the narrow streets of Basrah, on the Persian Gulf, looking into the shops of the pearl merchants, and I saw there, behind glass and bars, some wonderful, marvellous pearls. I was fascinated with them. And from those narrow streets you could look away to the sea, and see the pearl fishers at work in their frail vessels — perilous work, costly work. Then a pearl merchant from Basrah came and travelled with me the rest of the journey to India. He was a solemn man, and you should have seen how he watched over and guarded his box containing the pearls. It was a reinforced box, with two heavy padlocks, and it was never out of his sight — never even out of his hands. He arrived at the other end, and the customs wanted to have a look — but oh, the concern of this man, all the time watching, alert, to see if anybody else was looking. A pearl represented his very life, his subsistence. All his being was concentrated into the pearl — it was everything to him.

And as I saw it and noted it, how I was taken back to this parable. That is what the Lord knew. We shall come back to that presently. A “pearl of great price”: this is a figure of His church, this is a figure of His bride — the church in the terms of a bride. “Great price”: He gave Himself; the cross and all that that cross meant was centred in the pearl, was centred in the bride. “Christ... loved the church, and gave himself up for it.”

Again, we said that this is the primary interest of the Holy Spirit; that, in this dispensation, this is the one thing that the Holy Spirit is after. By every method, by every means, along every line, through every ministry, the end that He has in view is the securing of this bride. Would that all the Lord’s servants would keep that always before them — that the end is not just to get individuals saved, important as that is; the end is not just to have so many Christians in the world, important as that is. The end is a corporate vessel called “the bride”. The Holy Spirit is dominated by that, He is governed by that in all His activities.

We said, too, that the bride is the consummate, the ultimate, full embodiment of the eternal counsels and purposes of God concerning His Son. This reaches right back to the past eternity into those counsels of the Godhead. God determined everything concerning His Son, in His Son, for His Son: everything was for the Son; and at the heart of everything is the bride, the church, His chosen bride, the elect.

[Shammu]

The Lord’s Quest for Bridal Characteristics

We come now to this second phase. All the judgments and dealings of the Lord with His people are governed by this object. This is the object of the Lord’s dealings with us — with the church, with the churches, with individuals — and we must view these messages to the churches in the book of the Revelation in the light of the bride. What is it that this Lord, the Bridegroom, this Son of man, is seeking? What is it that He has in His mind in these messages to the churches? He is after bridal characteristics. So He sits and summarises. There are many things which He commends. These are features of the bride. “I know thy works” — all right, quite good; “thy labours” — all right; “thy patience”, yes, very good; “thy conscientiousness” — “thou didst try them that call themselves apostles, and they are not” — “you have a sense of right and wrong, conscientiousness” — yes, very good, the bride must certainly be like that; “you are honest, you will not tolerate false apostles and false teachers” — yes, very good, the bride will certainly be like that; “thou holdest fast my name” — that is all right, that is good; thou “didst not deny my faith” — yes, it must be like that, people who comprise this company must certainly be like that. Thy charity, thy service, thy faith, and still more works, more than at the beginning — all right, all good.

Yes, these are features of the bride, but there is a longer list of things that the bride must not express — features which are not bridal features and which must go. Lost first love — that will not do; the bride must be characterized at the end by that which was at the beginning, by an utterness and freshness of devotion to the Lord Himself. “Thou hast there the doctrine of Balaam, and those that teach the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.” We may not understand what that was altogether. I do not pretend to be able to tell you, but I think I can tell you exactly what it MEANS. In both these cases, the doctrine of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans, it was a teaching which had come in, purporting to be something superior to the Scriptures, to what God had said. What had God said to Israel, and what had God made Balaam say about Israel? But then, for the gain of unrighteousness, Balaam went right back on his words and brought in a teaching to Israel which in effect said, “Look here, you can do this, you are allowed to do that: God will not take any notice of it, God will not bring you into judgment for that.” And the other teaching had the same effect — a life and a practice which had the Word of God against it, being excused on some theory introduced.

This is not strange to our own day. There are many people who are superior to the Scripture. There is the Scripture plain and clear on certain things, and yet they are above the Scripture. They even claim that the Lord has shown them that a certain course is right, when the Scripture is as glaringly against it as anything could be. If it were necessary, I could begin to take a whole handful of scriptures and show how they are violated and a theory is gathered around them which excuses from the precision of God’s mind as revealed in His own Word. Satan used Scripture to try to seduce the Lord Jesus into complicity with himself — spiritual fornication. “It is written, He shall his angels charge concerning thee...” (Matt. 4:6). But the Lord Jesus saw through his suggestion, saw what it would lead to, what it implied, saw that the result of following Satan’s course would be something contrary to the revealed mind of God. It is easy to use Scripture to support us in a way that we would like to go.

Now the Word of God gets down to motives, and here were two teachings which resulted in a practice and a life which was contrary to, and claimed to be superior to, the Word of God — fornication, things sacrificed to idols, and so on. Yet there is another teaching that undercuts even that, and results in another sin, well-known in those early times, that it does not matter how you behave: you are saved and you will never be lost; rest upon the eternal security of the believer and behave as you like — an iniquitous thing. It was that kind of thing the Lord was up against. It may be in very gross forms and it may be in very simple forms, but the point is — this will not do for the bride. The bride must be transparent, pure in motive, doing nothing to gratify personal ends, having no arguments to support personal interests.

“Thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead.” Profession without reality. That will not do for the bride, by any means. “Thou art neither cold nor hot”. Indefiniteness, an absence of real character; not clearly defined and unmistakable as to your life and position, so that everybody knows exactly where you are and what you are, and there is no mistaking it. The bride must be like that.

Perhaps enough has been said to indicate that what is in view here, in these messages to the churches and to us, is the quest for bridal conditions, summed up in those words: “Christ... loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.” That is the heart of chapters 2 and 3 of the book of the Revelation; that is the bride. The Son’s satisfaction, the Father’s satisfaction, and the answer to all the Holy Spirit’s activities, is found in a people after this kind.

The Calling of the Whole Church

We must dismiss another thing: the idea that the bride is a select company, chosen and appointed to be like this. We must make no such distinction and discrimination between the church given as a whole and the bride. The whole church is called to this — that is the revelation of the New Testament; not only some, but the whole church. Whether the whole church will arrive, or arrive at the same time, is an open question, but we are all called to it, every one. This is incumbent upon us all, not merely upon some called “overcomers”, a “bride”, “firstfruits”, and so on. This is the church in view. There may be those who move ahead of others, who go on more rapidly than others, who satisfy the Lord more quickly than others; the others may lag behind and come on afterwards; but whether all attain unto the same glory or not, this is what we are all called to. None of us is excused by any provision made by the Lord. The Lord has not got pigeon-holes already fixed, saying, “We put first-class Christians in there and second-class Christians in there, and provide for them accordingly.” He has only one pigeon-hole in view. If you do not come into it He has not provided a place for you anywhere else, and He has told you that you will lose very much. It is a very serious thing not to answer to Him in the primary way.

The Bride, the Wife of the Lamb

“The bride, the Lamb’s wife.” Do not ask the mechanical question, Who will be in the bridal party? Who will comprise the bride? There again you are mentally dividing things up. I can tell you at once who will be the bride. Not a certain number of people who are called to be the bride, as different from others, but those who come to the bridal position spiritually. They will be the bride, and that is open to everyone. The bride is not a technical term belonging to a certain class, order and section of Christians. It is a spiritual term belonging to a condition, a spiritual state.

“The bride, the Lamb’s wife”, is the term here. “The Lamb’s wife” — what does that mean? The Lamb was one who suffered in meekness. “As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth” (Isa. 53:7). The Lamb went that way: the bride will know the fellowship of His sufferings, and must be of the same spirit of meekness. No standing for her own rights, upon her own dignity, asserting her own interests, but letting go to the Lord, in self-emptying and meekness. That is the Lamb, and that is the bride, the Lamb’s wife, taking her character from Him.

[Shammu]

The Lamb in the Midst of the Throne

Ah, but there is the other side. There is a Lamb in the midst of the throne. There is the wrath of the Lamb — the Lamb shall make war. The mighty “beast” rears himself — what a terrific force is represented by the “beast” here. He is let loose in all his ferocity and malignity and evil and mighty power. And then the Lamb makes war and smashes the beast, destroys him. The LAMB does it. There is a mighty power bound up in this weakness. Oh, we have not yet learned the strength of weakness, the strength of emptiness, which means that there is nothing in ourselves but everything in the Lord. When the Lord gets people there, the enemy is afraid; something is going to happen. We can never overcome the enemy while we are standing up for our own rights, while we are in any way defending our own interests, looking after our own name, being something or trying to be something or hold on to something. The enemy laughs at us, breaks us. When we know that meekness of the Lamb, the meekness of Jesus Christ, then the enemy’s power is going to be weakened and destroyed. These are principles in the book.

The wife of the Lamb is going to be with Him in His throne. Let us dismiss the symbolism and grasp the principle and the spiritual meaning. It is absolute ascendency in Heaven over all the forces of the earth and hell, vested in the Lamb, and conferred upon His bride, the Lamb’s wife. It is the mighty power of a yielded life, the mighty power of weakness of the right kind — that is, of dependence, conscious dependence upon the Lord.

The Pearl of Great Price

In conclusion, I want to come back for a few moments to the matter of the pearl. It is a remarkable thing, the place that the pearl has in the New Testament. If you look in the Old Testament, you will not find it anywhere. When precious stones are mentioned in the Old Testament, the pearl is never included. It was something upon which the Jews set no special value. They had great ideas of the sapphire and the beryl and the onyx and all the other precious stones, but the pearl they despised. It was therefore almost a shock to them when the Lord Jesus began to speak about the merchant man and a precious pearl. It was an entirely new idea, investing the pearl with a value and preciousness which was strange to them, new to them. In the New Testament the pearl has a significant place. Right at the end, we find that the very gates of the city are pearls. We know the pearl is formed through suffering — therein lies its preciousness — and the suffering leads to beauty and glory.

The bride is to know “the fellowship of His sufferings”. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:12, AV). There is an “if” there, a governing “if”. It does not say, “If we are saved, we shall reign”, “If we become believers in the Lord Jesus, we shall reign.” It does not say that in the Scriptures. It says: “If” (and only “if”) “we suffer, we shall reign with him.” It is a very constituent of the bride that she shares His sufferings, pours out her very life-blood — it may be in a spiritual way, it may sometimes be in a literal way — for her Lord. Her life goes for Him as His life went for her. There is such a moving together that one life is given for the other, and vice versa. That is the bride.

Now are you, apart from all the words and ideas, seeing God’s point? Why do we gather for “conferences”? If you were to come here between conferences, you would find that the threefold ministry of the New Testament was going on: the seeking of the material, the bringing of souls to be material for the House of God; the building-up ministry; and this ministry of bringing into view the full thought of God, God’s requirements as to the utter revelation of His mind. It is this last that is the object of these conferences. These are not “material-gathering” meetings, evangelistic meetings, much as we are concerned for the unsaved, very truly so; and these are not just “building-up” meetings, for teaching and instruction — though they are that. But they are not JUST that. The crown of the ministry is to keep before the Lord’s people the fullness of His intention in the church; to measure up, to call back, to make adjustment, to judge things; and to satisfy our Lord’s heart in the ultimate, consummate sense of His desire, as expressed in the bride.

It will involve in sufferings, in the wrath of the enemy. It will mean that we are not let off with our flaws and failures. The Lord comes again and says, “There are many good things, but I am not accepting anything less than My standard.” He must do that — we are involved in that. But oh, it is a great destiny, the destiny of the bride — no less than His throne, nothing short of His throne: to be with Him in the administering of His great universal kingdom through the ages of the ages. May the Lord bring His call and challenge to our hearts.

[Shammu]

Chapter 8 - The Man Who is Alive

Reading: Revelation 4,5.

When we commenced this series of studies with the first chapter of the book of the Revelation, we said that the book of Genesis and the book of the Revelation bound the whole history of this world: one the beginning, the other the ending. The very first phase of that history is governed by man and the tree of life. The book of the Revelation opens not with that man, but with the MAN — the new creation Man — and brings us to the tree of life. These two things underlie the whole of the history from the beginning to the end, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation — man and the tree of life. In other words, the overruling factor throughout the whole of history is this matter of life in a man, or life in MAN. That is the great issue. Around that, in relation to that, concerning that, everything goes on.

The Dominant Factor of Life

Here, in this book of the Revelation, you can see how this is prominent and dominant. In the first chapter, we have seen the presentation of the Man living, the living Man, the Man of the new creation, the Son of Man, as He is there called, who announces concerning Himself: “I am... the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore.” That governs all that will follow.

We come to chapter 4, and here the great factor, nearest to the throne, the very centre and heart of the universe, is that which is symbolized in the four cherubim, or “living ones”. (“Beasts”, in the Authorised Version, and “creatures”, in the Revised Version, are misleading. It is simply “living ones”, or “living things”.) Here, right at the heart of things, next to the throne, is a symbolic embodiment of LIFE, and the ascendant feature of that fourfold symbolism is MAN. We see elsewhere in the Scriptures how, with the cherubim, the man feature dominates the whole.

Passing into chapter 5, we find the creation brought into view in this symbolic representation. The whole creation — the lion, the ox, the eagle, the man — creation fourfold is represented there, in a LIVING state. Here it is the whole question of redemption, the redemption of the creation. You will notice that it is again summed up in the matter of LIFE: the whole creation redeemed unto life, found now through redemption in a state of life, in virtue of the work of the Lamb slain.

And later, as the book begins to come to its end and to sum things up, we are introduced to the tree of life, with its universal benefit; and then the “river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb” (22:1), and everything living where the river of life comes. And the last glorious sound and voice in the book of the Revelation is: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come... And he that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take the water of life freely” (22:17).

So we see: the first thing in Genesis — life; the last thing in Revelation — life. That is a very brief and imperfect summary, in order to indicate how dominating is this matter of life.

“I am He that Liveth”

Let us for a minute go back to the beginning of this book of the Revelation — because it is the summation of history from beginning to end — and look at the language used here by the Son of man. “I am... he that liveth”, “the Living one” (Rev. 1:17,19). That is a discriminating statement. It quite obviously suggests that He is unique. If I were to say to you, “I am alive!”, you would reply, “And so am I! You are not so very different from me!” Ah, but, you see, when the Lord Jesus here makes this announcement, no one can say in the same way, “I am alive.” As the beginning, as the first and the last, as the firstborn of the dead, as the representation of God’s thought, He stands alone. “I am he that liveth”. He is evidently distinguished by a life not elsewhere possessed. “In him was life”, says the same writer (John 1:4). “I am he that liveth.” How much is contained in that word “liveth”! If you want to see the content of that word as used by John — what this life means, what its potency is, its tremendous effectiveness, its rich potentialities — you should go right through the book of the Revelation. This life gets right to the very throne of the universe and is there in the place of government.

“I am he that liveth; ...I became dead.” What is the significance of that? Oh, wonder! — it is this. “When I accepted, yielded to, went into death — when I ‘became dead’ — I did so in order that I might take on, as a wrestler, a boxer, a fighter takes on an opponent, the full force of death, and enter into a mighty conflict with death. It was not just that I passively died, that I was crucified here, but I deliberately BECAME DEAD.” In the other words of John: “No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself... This commandment received I from my Father” (John 10:18). “I laid down My life. Deliberately, consciously, knowing exactly what I was doing, with full intelligence and meaning, I became dead, in order to take up this mighty, terrible enemy, to take him on and to rend him, to break his power and subject him entirely to Myself.”

“I became dead, and behold, I am alive unto the ages of the ages.” This is a life which will never see death again; this is a life which has no death ending; this is a life which will never, never again come under the power of death. “I am alive unto the ages of the ages, and I have the keys” (the symbols of authority) “of death and of Hades.”

“The Firstborn Among Many Brethren”

Well, if that were all, that would be something — that would be a great deal for us: for all that is truly for us, on our behalf — not on His own behalf, but on ours — and all that is gathered into Him for us to possess through faith. But then we come to the next phase, a further phase, of this matter. For He as the new creation Man is not alone. He is “the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18), “the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). He is the Head of a Body, and so now what has been true in His case has to be made true — not theoretically and doctrinally, but actually true — in the whole of this new creation man, collectively and corporately. That is what lies behind these messages to the seven churches. In effect it amounts to this: “Through faith in Me, through faith in the meaning of My death and resurrection, you become possessors of My life — of that very life which in Me has overcome death. I gave you that life, eternal life, and you, possessing that life, have been subjected, like Me, to the ordeal of testing, the testing out of that life as to its quality, its potency. What has happened to you? What has happened to the testimony of that life in you?”

Well, we find that in the majority of the churches, as representing the whole history of the church, the greater part has not lost its life, but has allowed its life, in differing measures, to succumb to the power, the onslaught of death. It has not been proved, through the faith and the attitude and the stand taken, to be what it is. The testimony of Jesus IS this, but the testimony, in terms of life absolutely, unreservedly triumphant over death, has been in measure lost. For various reasons, on differing grounds, the life has not been made to manifest itself in its mighty qualities of holiness and purity and in its tremendous power and energy.

The risen Christ is saying: “You have been put to the test in the presence of death, as I was.” Not, of course, in the sense of redemption, atonement; that does not apply to us. There were other aspects of the meaning of the cross, but its innermost meaning was this, that He met the full force and range of spiritual death in this universe and destroyed it, in Himself — a Man for man. “Now”, He says, “I pass on that life to you, and with it I pass on the testimony, My testimony — ‘the testimony of Jesus’. You are in this world, placed in this world, not guarded, kept, from the assaults of spiritual death, but subjected to it in numerous, almost countless, forms and ways. This force of death is allowed still to remain and to assail you — whether openly or secretly, manifestly or hiddenly. In every conceivable way, and many inconceivable ways, this one thing is at work, this power of death, and you are there to prove that I became dead and am alive for evermore, that I destroyed death and am henceforth alive in the power of an indissoluble, eternally deathless, life.”

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The Certainty of the Ultimate Triumph of Life

As we know, the churches, and the church which they represented, largely failed. But then suddenly we leave the failure of earth conditions, all that is going on down here, and the voice calls us up higher. “Come up hither, and I will show thee...”, and in the Spirit we are caught right away from the earth. We see a throne; and, immediately encircling the throne, in touch with the throne, we find these living ones — a representation in the presence of God of life absolutely regnant, triumphant; life reigning. “throne” is the great word here — a throne, and thrones — and that which pre-eminently characterizes them is life. The throne is exercising its great authority and dominion in terms of life, because there is a Lamb there who has abolished death and is alive for evermore.

Because God has that testimony right there in the throne, in His very presence, there is going to be an ultimate triumph, an ultimate glorious triumph. The churches may fail in part, the individuals that make up the churches or the church may lose their testimony, may stumble along the way, may go down before death again and again, but the end of the story is a tree of life and a river of water of life. It is life absolutely triumphant at the end, because it is secured in Him who is the beginning.

Eternal Life the Occasion of Satanic Opposition

What is the value of this? To begin with, it says to us that this life, this eternal life that we have received, is the very occasion of all that we experience of satanic opposition. For it is the saints, it is believers, who know so much more of this than anyone else. All that we are allowed to undergo of opposition, of suffering, of knowing spiritual death — what is the explanation of it all? Physical death, of course, is universal; but this spiritual hostility in terms of death, to kill you, to kill your testimony, to destroy your note of triumph, to do anything that covers, hides, beclouds or eclipses this life — the very life itself is the occasion of it.

Do understand that, if you had not got the life, the enemy would not be after you as he is. Our possessing the life is the continuation of the testimony of Jesus that He has conquered death, and it is that testimony that the enemy is after. We compose the church, and it is the church which is His Body, which is the vessel of the testimony of Jesus — and the testimony of Jesus is that He became dead and is alive for evermore, and all that that means — it is the church which is the object of terrible hatred, animosity, vindictiveness, on the part of the enemy, to destroy that testimony of Jesus. This is no new truth to many, but may the Lord bring it home to us both as a challenge and as an explanation. It is not that the enemy does not like you or me. It is that life — the regnancy of that life, and the testimony of its mighty victory — that he is after. It is the life which is the occasion of all the trouble, the explanation of all our strange experiences.

But then, blessed be God, the message here is also that, though we may fail many times and grievously, our testimony may for a time become eclipsed, we may know the overflowing of death in spirit or in other ways, the end is a picture of complete deliverance from death, the end is the full triumph of life. And that is not something said as of a future thing. Thank God, many have enough proof of this in their spiritual history. There are many who know that they have more than once seemed to “touch bottom”. Again and again, in our spiritual history, we have got down so low that it seemed no recovery was possible. We have just come to despair, come to the place of giving it all up: it seems so impossible and hopeless; we are such a failure. But the Lord has given us an experience of life again and again. We have come up, have we not? We have just been amazed that it was ever possible that we should have come up again, but we have. It was not that we struggled out of the mire, it was not that by some tremendous effort of ours we got ourselves clear. No, no effort was possible, but we had the life, and although for the time being we seemed to be crushed, almost buried, and we did not feel that we had any divine life at all, nevertheless the Lord has borne with us and has done this very thing.

Oh, yes, we are responsible very often. If we had been more watchful, if we had stood our ground, if we had laid hold of the Lord more continually, very often it need not have been. But there are experiences where, in spite of ourselves, we seem to be encompassed and overwhelmed by death. In spite of all our laying hold of the Lord, we have gone into an experience of terrible darkness. Everything seems to have gone. And then, apart from ourselves — save that, in some weak, very weak way, we have still hoped in the Lord, still looked to the Lord, still feebly trusted the Lord — the Lord has sovereignly come in and we have been raised up again. And as we look back upon it (apart from those times when it was due to some sin on our part), we look back upon many experiences where we cannot say definitely that it was because of this or that — it just happened, it came on us, we found ourselves in an awful conflict with death — and we have to say: Evidently the Lord was allowing us to know death in order that we might know life again, that this thing should not be something we talk about, a theory of ours, a teaching, but that it should become really living in us, that we should be the living embodiment of the truth.

The Embodiment of Life in a Man

This brings us to the very point that we are trying to stress all through: that this testimony has got to be IN man, it has got to be THE MAN HIMSELF — not merely something to teach. As truly as it was in His case, the Son of man, so it has to be made in our case, as in the Son of man. This matter of life has got to be expressed in man-terms, it has to be a man-way of expression and manifestation. Life is assailed; yet marvellously, and often strangely beyond our understanding and comprehension, causing us to be wonders to ourselves, resurrection has taken place. It will be like that to the end. Many people have the idea that if they have eternal life they are going to have a glorious time. It is all going to be so wonderful — life, wonderful life, life more abundant — they are going to be on top always. No, you are not! The very fact that you have that life will mean that it will be tested to the utmost, in order that it may be proved in people, in human beings, that there is One who has conquered death and all that death means.

And it does not stay there. In the beginning, when man sinned and the sentence of death was passed upon him through his sin — “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”, and he did die, for death is severance of relationship with God — then the creation was placed under the curse because of the man. But here you have the Man — the new Man, the new-creation Man — perfected, established; and then the whole creation is seen to come into redemption of life, as Paul says in Romans 8. But before the creation can come into its life, the sons of life have got to be manifested, and this life has got to be made manifest in them as triumphant over death.

When you come into the realm of resurrection life, of divine fullness, the river flows and flows and flows. We are not just containers given a supply for the day — we are channels. It begins somewhere else high up in the Man in the glory, and comes flowing down as a river, and it will go on and on. This is life! The testimony of Jesus is the testimony of life. When we really touch the Lord Jesus, we touch life, and if He is present in His Body, the church, in even a small representation, there ought to be a testimony of life. It is not a matter of so much light and truth, but of life, growing life.

The rest of the book of the Revelation, from chapter 6 onwards, deals with all that stands in the way of life. The church having been brought to account on the question of this testimony of life in Christ, the Lord then takes up the judgment of this world, as to that which gives ground for death, and deals with it and progressively passes it out, until it is all judged and put away and a new creation in life is established.

Now, if you have lost heart, take heart! If you have come near to giving up, do not give up yet. HE is not dead yet! Your Lord has gone up, and there is still a testimony up there governing. The throne, that throne, governs, and the end is going to be life. Let us stand for it — you stand for it! Do not accept death. The enemy is all the time wanting us to accept death, he is holding it out to us in one form or another and wanting us to take it, whereas the Word says, “Take life!”, “Lay hold on life!”

The Lord help us, so that He may have in us an unbroken testimony right to the end.

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Chapter 9 - The Man Child

Reading: Revelation 12:1-12.

Sonship in Representative Fullness

Here we have, I believe, the whole matter of sonship gathered into representative fullness. This son, this man child, is sonship in representative fullness: that in which all the principles and elements of Christ have been brought to utterness.

The conception of Christ takes place in the believer by the revelation of Christ in the heart. Paul said: “It was the good pleasure of God... to reveal his Son in me” (Gal. 1:15,16). Again he said: “God... shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). The man child — sonship — is conceived by the revelation within of Jesus Christ. Something takes place in us, the beginning of something new and wonderful, when we are able to say, in these or other words, “By an act of the Holy Spirit, a conceiving act of the Holy Spirit, God has revealed His Son in me: in my heart I have seen the Lord Jesus.” The principle of Christ is that He was “conceived of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 1:20), and that is true in the case of every believer. The conception of Christ in our hearts is by the Holy Ghost, and the method is the revelation of Christ. We have to date everything, all this wonderful new beginning and prospect, to the time when we could say, “I have seen the Lord Jesus”, which marked the conception of sonship.

Sonship Not Possible to the Flesh

But again, the principle of conception is that which we find stressed throughout the Scriptures, Old and New: namely, that it is something which is not possible to the flesh, not even to the religious flesh. It is not possible to the church. You know the Old Testament instances in which this very principle is revealed. Isaac is impossible to the flesh, even to the flesh of a separated and consecrated Abraham, a man who is walking with God. He cannot of himself, by the will of the flesh, produce sonship. This is of God, wholly, utterly of God. The Isaac man child, with all its tremendous significance, is something that the religious flesh cannot produce. Samuel is another case. How impossible Samuel was without a divine intervention, a real act of God. Again and again we find the situation under the sovereignty of God related to the bringing forth of something to serve God’s purpose in a very particular and special way.

This is an abiding principle brought out spiritually in the New Testament. It is something which cannot be unless the Lord does it. Sonship is an impossible thing apart from God. This that is to come forth as the full expression of God’s mind concerning His Son is beyond us. It is outside of any ability of our will or mind — it is of the Lord. Christ said: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Here, in the “man child”, this principle is brought to utterness: “...who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). There is a good deal of mixture in Christians. There is much of being Christians by our decisions and willings and efforts and activities. Many people are in a false position as to the beginning of their Christian life. It is not a thing utterly of God. It is something they have done and decided upon. Many who are children of God are mixing things up, mixing their own strength and effort with what is of the Lord; and, in so far as it is like that, it is a contradiction of divine principle and cannot come to this ultimate full expression.

The principles of Christ are brought to utterness in the man child. Let there be no mistake about what it is that we have in view. It is not just being Christians. It is the principles of Christ brought to utterness. That is what is here set before us.

The Full Formation of Christ

Paul said to the Galatians, and through them to us: “My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you...” (Gal. 4:19). The conception has taken place, there is something there, but there has to be a full formation of Christ within. Paul says, “I am in distress, in agony, in great pain, till Christ be fully formed in you.” The “man child” is the full formation of Christ in the church.

And the formation, as we know so well, is in the first place by means of a ministry — a ministry which God provides to that end. If God’s thought is full conformity to the image of His Son, the full formation of Christ or the full expression of Christ, He will provide a ministry sovereignly for that purpose. So we have in the New Testament not just ministry for the salvation of souls and for the care of spiritual babes — it is there — but the importance of the New Testament bears down upon this other thing: the full formation of Christ. The real weight of the New Testament has to do with full formation, and God has marvellously provided ministry for that purpose.

The formation, too, is by means of discipline. By far the greater amount of the discipline (what the Word calls “chastening”, literally “child training”) in the life of a true, earnest believer, has to do with this full formation. There are phases of discipline concerned with our wrongdoing, our sins, our errors, where the Lord has to correct and has to chasten, but let it be understood that by far the greater amount of the chastening or the discipline of the people of God has to do with the full formation of Christ.

The Travail

After the conception and the formation, we come to the travail. To begin with, the travail starts, not with ourselves, but with the Holy Spirit Himself. It is the Spirit of God who is in the first place travailing to this end for the full formation of Christ. You have only to read the letter to the Galatians to recognise that. See the place of the Holy Spirit. We must understand that this travail in the apostle Paul is not Paul’s working of himself up to a state of trouble and anguish, but something in him by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes up this matter of travail, and wherever He expresses Himself He will cause this sense of pain concerning spiritual life. When you and I have a bad time over our spiritual life, it is a mark of the Holy Spirit’s work. It is indeed a sign of His working when we have a bad time over other people’s spiritual life — provided we are having a bad time about our own as well! You understand what I mean. There is the possibility of always being troubled about other people’s spiritual life, and not looking after our own; but, provided we know what it is to have the work of the Spirit in us, it is a mark of the Spirit’s moving in us that we are deeply pained about spiritual conditions in the Lord’s people. The travail begins with Him.

Women, in the Bible, are types of spiritual principles, and Hannah, being a woman in the Bible, represents a spiritual principle. It was Hannah who, in the presence of God, in the House of the Lord, was found breaking her heart over this matter of the man child, in travail for a man child. Hannah, in type, indicates that a principle by which God is going to reach His end, His full expression, is the travail of our spirits brought about by the Holy Spirit.

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Travail at the End-time

Now, this picture of the woman in travail, in Revelation 12, belongs to the end-time. There is no doubt about that, because Satan here is still in the heavenlies, where Paul showed him to be in his letter to the Ephesians. John has outlived Paul by thirty years, so that, sixty years after the ascension of Christ, Satan is still in the heavenlies, operating and making war. John is being shown the things that shall come to pass afterwards, so that this travail belongs to the end-time. It is the church in suffering in order to produce something.

Do not let us be led astray, do not let us be deceived and become mistaken, if the Lord should for a time do a work of what is called “revival” and many saints are gathered in, and there seems to be some tremendous thing going on; do not let us be deceived. That is one aspect of end-time need, that there shall be an ingathering, but — let there be no mistake about it — the actual end-time is going to be marked by suffering on the part of the church. How that will come about I do not propose to discuss now. The possibilities for the church, with the irresistible spread of one great power over the earth, are pretty clear. It will not be put back, it will go on; it is anti-God, anti-Christ, and wherever it holds sway it will begin to limit the activities of the Lord’s people, and presently it will break out. But whether that be it or not, there is coming, and it may be in our lifetime, a time of real suffering to Christianity, and out of that suffering there will come that which goes right out to the Lord. Many will fall away, many will give up, many will drop out of the race, paralysed by the situation, but there will be those who see that the only thing is utterness for the Lord — to go right on.

Is not that the question which confronts us, in a small way, a particular and personal way, in every bit of suffering? Something comes upon us — the Devil makes an onslaught — and there are alternatives for us. One is to sit down in hopelessness and give it up, say that you cannot go on, to turn with bitterness against the Lord, to become full of questions and almost cynical. The other alternative is to say: “There is nothing for it but just to go on!” We are all brought to that situation in simple ways. “Am I going to succumb, to yield to despair, to give up? Or am I going right on, and all the more because of this activity of the enemy?” The Spirit of God would bring us to that. You notice that that is the thing upon which Paul put his finger in his word to the Galatians. Because of certain things, they had stopped in the race; they were Christians, but they had stopped, come to a standstill. “O foolish Galatians, who did bewitch you?” (3:1). “I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you” (4:19). “You have to go on. The only thing for you is to go on; not to stop, to give up, but to go on.”

The Birth of the Man Child a Crisis

And it is those who go on who reach that which is here represented by the man child — full sonship. But it is the product of suffering, the effect of suffering. It is going to be made corporate at the end, and — there is no doubt about it — the birth of the man child is the crisis. Thank God, it is going to be a definite crisis, an act. It is going to be a rapture. The word here is quite clear. It is not a word that has been coined to express some theory. “Caught up” to the throne is just the word “raptured”, and it is used in the New Testament in other connections. When we read that Philip the evangelist was “caught away” by the Spirit and found at Azotus (Acts 8:39,40) the same word is used; he was raptured, he was caught away. When Paul said: “I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not; or whether out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up even to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2), it is the same word — raptured.

And here this man child is caught up, raptured. It is an act. Philip was raptured in an act, not over a lifetime; it was something sudden, quick, precise. And so this man child is caught up to God and to His throne. It is the consummation of a work of the Holy Spirit of bringing children of God to a place of full and utter expression of spiritual principles, the principles of Christ. A principle is not an outward form, but an underlying law, and there are these underlying laws of Christ which are going to be made utter in us. Christ is heavenly: that is a law. It will have its utmost expression in the man child — born out from Heaven and at last caught up to God and to the throne. It is the principle made perfect.

The Wrath of Satan Against the Man Child

“To rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (Rev. 12:5). That word was spoken also in promise to the overcomers of the church at Thyatira (Rev. 2:27). If this is God’s thought and intention, what may we expect? Well, there is a great red dragon not far away, whose one concentrated interest is in this man child. The woman, with the rest of her seed, the whole of the church, will come second. They will be a secondary, though by no means unimportant, interest and concern. But the primary concern of the great adversary — here called the “great red dragon”, later called Satan, the Devil, “the deceiver of the whole inhabited earth”, “the accuser of the brethren” (12:9,10) — the dominant object of his hatred is this expression of Christ in fullness, in utterness. He is against that; he is out to devour this “child”. His hatred and malice are concentrated in a determination if possible to destroy those who are seeking to go right on with the Lord, and those who are seeking to fulfil any ministry in that connection, to destroy them, to swallow them up and put them out altogether, to make it impossible for them to come to their divinely intended place and destiny.

Just look for a moment at this in the Bible — the wrath of Satan against the man child or against sonship in full expression. The book of Exodus is just this. Exodus is sonship and victory over the world. The very first verse strikes this note: “Now these are the names of the sons of Israel” — sons of a prince with God! Here is sonship right in the first verse of the book. When you come to verse 16 of that first chapter, you find Pharaoh issuing his order for the destruction of all male children, and the word is: “If it be a son, then ye shall kill him.” How much of spiritual history lies behind that! We see Herod coming in, centuries later, and killing all the male children to get one particular Son (Matt. 2:16). And again, in chapter 4 of Exodus, we read: “Israel is my son, my firstborn: and I have said... Let my son go” (vv. 22,23). It is sonship, and the exodus, the emergence of Israel, is sonship triumphing over the world and its principles. There is much more in the Old Testament concerning the wrath of the enemy against the man child — against sonship in fullness.

Satan Cast Down

So there will be a climax. God will get what He is after; it will be found in the throne — it will be established in its position for its glorious purpose and function. And it is quite obvious that when that man child, that full expression, is found in the throne, Satan is put out of his heavenly position. He and his angels were cast down to the earth (Rev. 12:9). They have only been there until the right and proper instrument of the heavenlies has come to its place. There is no room in the heavenlies for the man child and for Satan together. One or the other has to go. When the Lord finds among His children those who satisfy Him in the matter of a full expression of these divine principles of sonship, the ground of Satan’s power in the heavenlies is undercut, and he is cast down. What a time that is, according to all that is said here! “Rejoice, O heavens...” (verse 12). This is indeed the climax of the ages. It is an immense thing, and therefore it involves with us very great matters in spiritual experience.

I close with something that I want you to take particular note of. We are not occupied with a special object called “the man child”, and we must not be. We are occupied with Christ. But we must recognise that there is a fullness of Christ to be reached which carries with it very, very big issues indeed. There are tremendous issues bound up with this chapter that we have read — divine interests, eternal issues, factors of supreme account. It is the matter of government in the heavenlies. It is no small thing to be caught up to God and His throne; no small thing for Satan and his angels to be deposed. That is bound up with a “man child” — a company of which it will be said: “And THEY overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death” (vs. 11): their soul-life — a big thing. But do not go around talking about the “man child”. This is only a representation of Christ in fullness. Talk about Christ. It is not the representation that we are after — it is Christ in fullness we are after: so let us keep our eyes on Him. Let us allow a message like this to move us, not towards some THING, under whatever designation, but towards Christ — towards a position of utterness in Christ.

The End

Up next, The Meaning of Christ

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The Meaning of Christ
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 - The Bringing in of a Man

"The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam a life-giving spirit" (1 Cor.15:45).

A Lost Impact

We are going to be occupied with the meaning of Christ. Before we come immediately into touch with that matter, there are a few preliminary words that I want to say, and they have to do with something of which we are all conscious, a matter which is troubling, I think I can say, the majority of real Christians. It is the matter of the lost impact of Christ, of the Gospel, of Christianity. We are suffering from a handicap, and that handicap is tradition. Christianity has become that - a tradition so largely, something handed down from generation to generation. It has become a theology, a set of doctrines, of statements about God, about Christ, about the Holy Spirit, and many other things, and as such it has passed very largely into the mental realm - a thing to be worked out in thought, a matter of reason. It has also become a great mystical cult. It has passed into the realm of art, and music, so that you can accept Christianity on that basis and be a Christian along that line, and yet that it shall stand completely out of relation to your inner life. Think of all that goes to make up Christianity as it is known today, of the external, the soulish appreciation; and it has no impact. There is the great need, surely, - and this is what we are seeking to come to at this time.

The great need is to get back to the real meaning of Christ, so that a new impact may come upon ourselves, and there shall come a new impact upon the world through us.

The Peril of Specific Teachings

Before I go on to that, let me point out another peril. It is the peril of specific teachings and specific movements. So often, specific teachings, although they may be right, become something in themselves, turn in upon themselves, and before long, run to seed, and have no positive impact. For a time they go on by their own momentum, the enthusiasm of those who are in them. They are carried on, and then they fade, they lose out. Now, the point is this, that everything must be a direct emanation from Christ and a directive to Christ, and not something in itself. It must come out of Him, it must be a living expression of Him, and it must draw back, lead back, to Him. It must be Christ as source, and Christ as goal, Christ Himself. We have to ask ourselves the question - How do we teach this or that? Are we teaching it or talking about it as an 'it', as some thing; or is it always kept immediately and directly related to Him, that this is but an expression of Christ, this is but a part of Him as the whole? When we detach something and begin to talk about it, whatever it might be, and begin to make a teaching around it, it is going to run to seed, it is going to lose impact sooner or later, the thing is going to come to an end; we are simply going to box the compass of truth, and then we shall have difficulty in finding something fresh to say in a living way. No, that will not do. It is Christ and only Christ Who is the power of God to effect the purpose of God, and we must see how everything is but Christ in expression. In a word, we must see the meaning of Christ. So much for this preliminary word as to the need of recovering impact, and the nature of our present limitation and weakness.

Man, the Climax of Creation

Let us come right to this matter for a little while - the meaning of Christ. In the verse which we read, the first half of the statement takes us back to the first chapters of the book of Genesis, to the bringing in of man. God made man, created man, and it is said of that man that he became a living soul. And when that was done it says "there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day". I am not going to discuss any of the old questions about time periods and so on, but in an order and arrangement of this world's history, we are now in the sixth day (a thousand years being as one day), and in this sixth day the supreme thing is the bringing in of a man in this Divine sense, the last Adam, the second Man, the bringing in of Him personally in the Person of Jesus Christ, and the bringing in of Him corporately in the person of His Body, the Church. That lies in the background; and thinking of the original bringing in of man in Genesis 1, how crisic that was in the whole course of Divine activity! What an immense point of arrival that was, how tremendously significant it was! We can say that it was the thing supreme in the Divine thought, and the bringing in of this second Man, firstly Christ Himself and then the Church which is His Body - called definitely and positively the "new man" (Eph. 2:15) - is as climactic as was the bringing in of Adam on that sixth day.