Glorying in the Lord
by T.
Austin-Sparks
Table of Contents
Chapter
1 - The Wisdom of the World
A Wisdom That Issues in Division
A Wisdom That Issues in
Unrighteousness
Divine Wisdom: Stature According To
This Wisdom
Zero in Man — The Divine
Starting-Point
Chapter 2 - The Wisdom which is From
Above
Wisdom Solving the Supreme Problem
Chapter 3 - The Supreme Importance
of a Living and Clear Apprehension of Christ
Only What is Christ Will Endure
Chapter 4 - The Appeal of God's Full
Thought
The Cause of Failure at Corinth
A Positive Attitude Against Evil
Essential
Reading: 1 Cor. 1:1-31, 2:1-5, 3:18-23.
As we meditate in the first letter to the Corinthians, it
grows upon us that the background of the letter is represented by the word
“wisdom”. It seems quite clear that it was that which took hold of the apostle
as summing up the situation at Corinth, and demanding rectification.
Undoubtedly to the Corinthians wisdom was the pre-eminent,
the most important thing. Indeed it was so with the whole Greek world. As the
apostle says in this letter “...the
Greeks seek after wisdom,” and the Corinthians
were a very strong expression of that fact, the quest for wisdom. That which
was their natural disposition had been brought by these believers into the
realm of the things of Christ, into the realm, shall we say, of Christianity,
and that quest, that element, that disposition, that craving, lay behind the
whole occasion of this letter. With them wisdom determined value. According to
the measure of what they would call “wisdom”, so the value of a thing, or of a
person, stood or fell. The whole question of power hung upon the matter of
wisdom. For them dimensions were always determined and governed by the idea of
wisdom. That is to say, in their eyes a thing, or a person, was great or small,
powerful or weak, to be taken account of or to be entirely set aside, according
as what of them was accounted “wisdom” was possessed or evidenced by such. It
was that domination of the “wisdom” idea which influenced their attitude toward
men.
It would seem that this is the explanation of the divisions
in the Corinthian assembly. The apostle writes, “Each one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos;
and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.” These
respective attitudes were governed by this “wisdom” idea. For some Paul was the
embodiment of wisdom; for others Peter; for others, though still in a natural
way, Christ was the embodiment of wisdom. Thus their attitudes were influenced
and governed by this dominating, shall we say, this obsessing, idea of wisdom. The whole tendency of it was to make
Christianity a philosophy, and to separate it from the living Person. When that
is recognized it is possible to understand and appreciate this letter to a far
greater extent, and to see that the whole letter has a bearing upon that issue.
Further, notice the effects morally of this wisdom
obsession, remembering that with them it was natural wisdom, the wisdom of the
natural man, or, as Paul calls it, the wisdom of this world. What is the nature
of that wisdom? There is one passage in the letter of James which will greatly
aid us in understanding this first letter to the Corinthians, and in our answer
to that question. The statement is as follows:
“This wisdom is not a wisdom that cometh down from above,
but is earthly, sensual (the margin
reads ‘natural’, though more literally the word is soulical,
or soulish, psychical), devilish.” (James 3:15 R.V.)
There we have the wisdom of this world strongly defined.
Look at it. It is “earthly”: that sets it over against
the heavenly wisdom. It is “sensual”, soulish, psychical:
that makes it entirely of the fallen nature of man and not of the nature of
God; not divine nature, but fallen human nature. It is “devilish”: finally,
therefore, it is not of God but of the devil.
Carry that back into the first Corinthian letter and you
have an explanation of what is found there along those very lines. You see
these Corinthians being strongly influenced by their natural propensities,
their natural inclinations, their natural desires in the sphere of wisdom, and
bringing all that into the realm of Christianity. The outworkings
of such a course is that you have sensuality making its appearance in the realm
of divine things, and with just such a condition of affairs this letter has
very strongly to deal. You know some of the grave touches in this letter, how
far even these who were in the assembly, in the Church, went in the matter of
sensuality. And the wisdom which led them that way led them into this further
state, where they failed to discriminate between what was of Christ and what
was directly of the devil, inasmuch as they came into an active touch with
demon idolatry in its intrusion into this world, and opened a way for it into
the very assembly of the Lord. The wisdom which is from beneath will go that
far. What sort of wisdom is this? Sensuality, leading imperceptibly into touch
with what is directly of the devil! The temple of God, and idols! The Lord’s table and sacrifices offered to demons! Oh, the
blindness of this thing, the utter blindness! Yet they were in the Christian
church, in the Christian assembly.
These divisions are another outworking of this “wisdom”
matter. Wisdom worked out in schisms. The apostle touches the deepest depths
when he says that this wisdom led those who were its devotees to crucify the
Lord of glory, and therein is a veiled suggestion that that may happen even in
the assembly of the saints, if the same thing is governing, namely that which
is of man; that which is of uncrucified natural man brought within the compass
of the things of Christ. Even there the cross of Christ may be made of none
effect, may be made void, and all that the cross stands for may be countered,
contradicted, and these things obtain. The “wisdom” question pervades this letter
from start to finish, is the background of it all, and because of the serious outworkings and effects of it the apostle wrote this
letter, in order that he might show what the true wisdom is, the wisdom which
is from above.
We will not deal with the wisdom itself for the moment, but
give our attention to this first chapter of the letter under consideration,
which sets for us the basis of everything. Here we have the question of
stature, worldly and divine. Firstly the worldly standard of value is presented,
stature as viewed and determined from the standpoint of worldly wisdom, and
then stature as judged from the divine point of view.
We have dealt with the worldly side. We have seen enough for
the moment of what its valuation is, and we are not very impressed. If what we
have noted is the stature of worldly wisdom, then indeed God has made foolish
the wisdom of this world, and God has made weak the strength of this world. We
are not impressed with those dimensions of a man.
We now turn to look at the divine side. “For behold your calling, brethren (that is, behold God’s call,
what God has called), how that not many
wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God
chose the foolish things of the world... and God chose the weak things of the
world... and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised...
and the things that are not...” (1 Cor. 1:26-28). This is very strong, very
positive. God chose! The force of that is “to pick out”. This has nothing to do
with eternal election. The apostle is not touching here upon election in
relation to God’s purpose in Christ. This has reference to the natural caliber
of those who were chosen in Christ. God picked out foolish things. God picked
out weak things. God picked out base things. God picked out things that are
not, (literally, things which have no being); God picked out things which are
despised, or considered nothing. Why? That He might put to shame wise men of
this world; that He might put to shame strong things of this world; that He
might bring to naught, or make void, things that are. Let us grasp the
situation as presented to us here. Foolish things set over against wise men:
weak things set over against strong things: things which are not set over
against things which are: things which are despised set over against things of
repute. God did this deliberately.
That word “chose”, or as we have translated it “picked out”,
is very interesting. In a book by Dr. Deissman called
“New Light on the New Testament,”
he makes much of this section of the chapter before us as a means by which the
caliber of the first believers is established, and he says that in the rubbish
heaps which have been turned over in recent years in the East a great deal has
come to light as to the Greek language which was used in New Testament times.
He tells us it is amply proved by the disclosure of these rubbish heaps that
communication was very largely in the language of the ordinary people, and that
the New Testament language — the Greek of the New Testament — is that of the
common people. He takes this word “chose”, or as we have called it “picked
out”, and says the very ordinary people, not the educated, of those days used
this particular Greek word when they were making a selection from a number of
things, getting something which they were set upon. They would turn over a
number of things, and when they found the best thing they took hold of it and
picked it out from all the rest and carried it off. It was the common language
of the people, and this particular word related to turning over things and
finding just that thing which was wanted and picking it out.
That is a good commentary. It is as though God looked over
the mass for something that He was after, and when He lighted upon it, He
picked it out from the rest and separated it, and made it His. God picked out,
like that, foolish, weak, despised things, things which are not, for His own
purpose.
There is an inclusive reason given, which is found in verse
29: “That no flesh should glory before God.” We have seen that God in part
picked out things of no worth that He might bring to naught, or make foolish,
the wise of this world, the mighty of this world, the things which ARE of this
world: but inclusively the governing principle of His choice was, “that no
flesh should glory before God”.
Then a quotation from Jeremiah 9 concludes that part of the
chapter: “He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord.” There you have the explanation of everything. What
is God after? On the negative side, He is undercutting all the glory of man; on
the positive side, He is providing Himself with a basis by which He Himself
shall receive the glory. That is the governing factor in all God’s dealings
with us; on the one hand, to undercut that natural tendency to glory in man,
and, on the other hand, to constitute a basis for glorying in the Lord.
What are God’s men of stature? We see what the world’s men
of stature are, but what are God’s men of stature? They are, on the one hand,
foolish things, weak things, despised things, and things which have no being.
That is the negative side, and it is essential to the positive side. The
positive side is only possible in so far as that obtains. What is the positive
side? Glorying in the Lord; that is, an utter, complete appreciation of God,
where the Lord is everything. Of course, the further statement of the apostle
has to be put in there, over against his enumeration of God’s choice of the
foolish, and the weak, the despised, and the things which are not — “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was
made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and
redemption...” That covers this whole book again, and takes you through it
on this other line. You see how natural wisdom takes you through this letter,
and mark the consequences, which are sensuality, devilishness, divisions; now
come on to the line of God’s wisdom, and you find wisdom of another order,
working out, not in sensuality, but in righteousness, sanctification, and
redemption.
We must leave that; but you see that for all the
deficiencies and lack on the natural side God has made full provision in His
Son. He is made unto us wisdom. The outworking of that wisdom is its own
vindication, just as the outworking of the wisdom of this world is its own
condemnation. The condemnation of the wisdom of this world is that it leads to
schism, to sensuality, to devilishness. It leads to all these things. That is
its own condemnation. The vindication of this wisdom from above is that it
leads to righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. The men of stature
from the divine standpoint are those in whom this wisdom is working out in that
way, who are standing in the value of that wisdom, even in righteousness, sanctification,
redemption.
All that we have to say at this time is this one special
thing, that stature from God’s standpoint is a matter of the utter nothingness
of man in himself, and the absoluteness of Christ for
man. Do you want to know what stature is? It is not to be something big, and
important, and noble, and wise, and strong from this world’s standpoint, but to
be the negation of all that in a relationship with Christ, in which He alone is
value to the vessel. The deliberateness of God’s act is seen here, with a view
to giving men a stature. He chose, He picked out, He went over everything, He
turned over everything, He scrutinized everything, and then He deliberately
picked out what He was after; and when He had secured it, He said of it, so to
speak, “Poor stuff!” Where is the wisdom of that? Where is the strength of
that? What is there to glory in that? God deliberately lifted that out of the
mass with an object, and bringing that into living relationship with His Son,
He deposited in that thing of poverty something that infinitely transcends all
the wisdom, and the power, and the glory of this world. Then of this He says, That nothing, that foolish, weak thing in a living
apprehension, appreciation, enjoyment of My Son is stature from heaven’s
standpoint, from My standpoint, from eternity’s standpoint.
This is calculated to revolutionize conceptions of things.
The apostle Paul so thoroughly accepted that position himself, that no sooner
has he summed up the position in the words, “He
that glorieth let him glory in the Lord,” than in
respect of himself he continues — there should be no break in the text between
chapter 1 and chapter 2 — “And I,
brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of
wisdom... I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.”
I ask you whether your own heart, and whether history, bears record to the fact
that Paul was a man of stature. We covet some of his stature; but here he is
taking that position of a foolish thing, a weak thing, a despised thing, a
thing which has no being from this world’s standpoint. But, oh, how that
nothing has counted! How God has registered Himself upon the course of this
world through that nothing! That is stature from God’s standpoint. It is the
measure of Christ. The measure of Christ entirely depends upon the little
measure of ourselves, or the no measure. God can do
things when He gets us there.
Paul puts the cross right at that point — “...Jesus Christ, and him crucified...” “The
word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness” “...the
foolishness of the thing preached...” (R.V. margin), not as otherwise
rendered “the foolishness of the
preaching.” What is the foolishness of the thing preached? It is the cross,
which brings us to foolishness in ourselves, and causes us to glory in Christ.
The Lord Himself acts in a way that makes it possible for the world, as it
looks upon believers in themselves, to regard them as very foolish things,
things which do not count at all. The world is quite right, if it takes that
view of us naturally. But the world is very far out in its calculation, if it
thinks that that is where the matter ends because the world is going to
discover, as it has already discovered, that that which it is quite justified
in regarding as weak, and foolish, and nothing in itself, will nevertheless
utterly overthrow the world, will challenge the world in such a way that the
world cannot answer the challenge. The history since Paul’s day has been that
in the “nothings”, the foolish
things, God has established a challenge which the world cannot get over, a
force mightier than all the force which this world in its totality of wisdom
and power can possess.
Why always try to be important? Why want to be somebody or
something? Why want to be seen and known and heard? That is the way to counter
your spiritual effectiveness. Shall we not covet rather to be in ourselves
nothing, that Christ may be more gloriously displayed by this? Shall we not in
a new way say Amen! to God’s choice, and recognize
that that is the way of His glory? “He
that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
Reading: 1 Cor. 2:1-16; 3:1-4, 18-23
The real trouble at Corinth was that the habit of looking at
everything as a philosophy, which had reached such a height of development
amongst the Greeks, had been carried into the realm of Christianity, and
Christianity was being considered by them in the light of philosophy, was in
fact being reduced to a new philosophy. In practice, therefore, at Corinth,
Christianity was set forth as a philosophical teaching, as opposed to a
spiritual state.
There is always that peril lurking amongst God’s people. It
is not a thing peculiar to the Greeks, nor to the
Corinthians, nor to a bygone age. Somewhere not far off from any assembly of God’s people there lurks the same danger of
Christianity becoming a matter of teaching, wisdom of words. From the reverse
side the danger is seen as something which merely gratifies the mind. The
natural man loves to be in the know. Knowledge to the natural man gives a sense
of strength, of power, of importance, and that peril of the natural man creeps
into the realm of Christian teaching. Thus to have good teaching, clear
teaching, systematic teaching, the presentation of Christian truth in a manner
in which the mind can grasp it, become informed and enriched, has always this
peril associated with it.
That is why a great many people do not like reiteration. They
like something fresh. To such the novel preacher is the attractive preacher,
the one who is “original”, that is, who is not saying things well known, but
something quite fresh, something unique, something that is not so familiar.
There is an attractiveness about them which makes its appeal to this appetite.
But should anyone get up and emphasize, and re-emphasize, and constantly hammer
home one point people get upset. They get tired of it. They want something
fresh for the mind. Very often they have not recognized the importance of that
truth to the heart. All this belongs to the same dangerous realm of Christian
truth and teaching becoming something for the mind. The peril is never far away
from the place where much truth is given, or a teaching ministry fulfilled.
The Greeks were experts in that realm. That was their
make-up, and they had brought that over into Christianity, and were reducing
Christianity to a human philosophy, a system of worldly wisdom. The
consequences were very, very serious indeed.
The point we want to emphasize is that you can always tell
whether truth possessed is possessed as a teaching, a doctrine, a philosophy,
or possessed as a living thing in relation to Christ, by the results that issue
from it, by its effects. In Corinth they had the Christian truth in a very
great fullness and richness, but they had it in the natural mind as teaching,
as truth, as doctrine, as a philosophy, and the terrible consequences were that
there was that which was sensual, earthly, and even devilish; so much so that
the apostle had in one case to hand over a certain individual to Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of Christ,
so devilish was that thing in the assembly.
It is terrible to contemplate that such could be the case in
a Christian assembly, where the Holy Ghost is, where Christ is, and yet here is
not only the awful possibility but the actuality. The apostle puts his finger
upon the cause when he says: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto
spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1). What is
carnality? It is the bringing over of the natural tendencies, the dispositions
of mind and heart, into the things of the Lord, and that is a very dangerous thing
to do, and has very pernicious consequences.
When the apostle introduces the heavenly wisdom he shows
that it is pre-eminently marked, not by words, but by a state. Of his own visit
to them he declares: “I... when I came
unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom... that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Cor.
2:1-5). It is a spiritual state. The wisdom which is from above produces a
state which is altogether the opposite of that produced by the wisdom of this
world, even though the wisdom of this world operate in the realm of Christian
truth.
Paul wrote, “I hear
that divisions exist among you...” (1 Cor. 11:18). Whence do they come?
They come from the intrusion of human wisdom into the realm of Christian truth.
Let us put that in another way. We find believers divided because they get
teaching apart from a living state: yes, Christian teaching, the doctrine of
Christ, resulting in schism amongst believers, because they only have it as a
teaching and not as a living state.
What is true of divisions is true of all these other unhappy
things at Corinth. Why such things? How do sensuality and the very mark of the
devil come to be found in a Christian assembly? This has been the sad history
of the Church again and again, that right in the midst of a Christian assembly
something perfectly devilish has sprung up, as well as these other things —
which are, of course, from no other source than the devil — divisions,
rivalries, jealousies, factions. This, I repeat, has been an unhappy history in
the Church at large. Why? Because of Christian teaching being handled merely as
a philosophy instead of both proceeding from, and
producing, a spiritual state.
We cannot be too emphatic about this matter. We do not want
to run the danger of anything so horrible and so gross, and if not, we must
face it. We do not want to get into a position like that. We want everything in
our relationship with the Lord to become a living and outworking reality.
Now the wisdom from above, of which the apostle speaks,
produces a state just the opposite of that state produced by this wisdom which
is from below. James 3:17 gives the definition of the wisdom which is from
above: — “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without
doubtfulness, without hypocrisy.” (R.V.M.)
There we have seven things marking the wisdom which is from
above. And do you see how closely this passage in James runs parallel, though in
striking contrast, to things at Corinth. We will not at this time dwell on
these seven features, but only in the briefest manner touch on one or two.
“The wisdom that
is from above is first pure...” At
Corinth there was a state the very reverse of this, because worldly wisdom had
come in. There was sensuality, uncleanness, and oh, strong word, “It is actually reported that there is
fornication among you...” (1 Cor. 5:1).
“...Then
peaceable...” The wisdom which is from above is peaceable.” But of the Corinthians
the apostle has to write: “...I hear that
divisions exist among you...” (1 Cor. 11:18).
So we might follow the comparison and the contrast right
through, but what we are seeking to say is this, that it is a state which is
produced by heavenly wisdom, a spiritual state. That is the ground of the
apostle’s use of the words in the second chapter, “he that is spiritual” (verse 15). This state is here said to be
Christ.
We want to get closer to this wisdom which is from above.
What is the object of wisdom? For what is wisdom required? It is to solve
problems, to see your way through, to get through your difficulties. Sin has
set up the greatest problems that this universe has ever known, and sin in man
set God His greatest problem. If we may speak, and I think we can rightly
speak, of God having a problem, then sin in man confronted God with the
greatest problem He has ever met with. What was the problem with which God
Himself became confronted when sin entered into the very nature of man, and man
became, not only a being with sin in him, but himself
sin? God’s problem was as to how He could overcome Himself. The position is
that sin must be destroyed if God is uncompromisingly holy. If God cannot
recognize, let alone condone, sin; if God in His very being,
is in absolute antagonism to sin, and it is war to the death if God has made
man and man has become sinful in his nature, God, by reason of what He is, is
compelled to destroy man utterly as a sinful thing. God has either to do that,
and destroy man completely, destroy His creation, or He has to find a way of
overcoming Himself, of overcoming His own nature, and the demands of His own
nature and being. To destroy man utterly, and to wipe out the whole sinful
creation, would spell defeat for God, and give occasion for Satan to rise up
and say: I have won. I have destroyed the work of God beyond repair.
That is one side of the problem for God. For God to spare
sinful man is to violate His own nature. How is a problem like that going to be
solved? There is wisdom wanted: on the one hand, wisdom to know how to do it,
and, on the other hand, power to accomplish it.
This is where glorying in the Lord comes in. You can see the
answer. You are living in the enjoyment of it. Christ is the wisdom of God, and
the power of God, Christ crucified. God has solved His problem by Himself
becoming Man, and in a great representative and all inclusive Manhood taking
the full and final consequences of sin so that the very nature of God is satisfied
in an inclusive Representative. What mighty power there was in destroying the
dominion of sin. There was wisdom in finding the way,
and there was the power in executing the work, and it was all in Christ
crucified. “He that glorieth, let him glory in the
Lord.”
How can God save sinful man and be true to Himself? CHRIST
IS THE ANSWER. This is a heavenly wisdom, and Christ is made unto us of God
wisdom. What is that wisdom? Righteousness, sanctification, redemption … how is
there righteousness from God to us in Christ? Because Christ
has fulfilled all righteousness … because in His death He has carried the
judgment upon all unrighteousness, and therefore satisfied the highest standard
of divine righteousness. Sanctification is something more. Redemption is
something more still.
Let us think for a moment of each of these. The three are an
exegesis of the one. That is to say, wisdom is defined in the other three.
Heavenly wisdom is righteousness, sanctification, redemption.
What is righteousness here? God’s laws are judgments. They
carry with them the absolute demands of God, which if violated result in the
judgment of God. There is no escape. Every man and woman entering into this
creation comes by birth under the rule of God’s judgments through God’s laws,
and becomes responsible for the laws of God. But every man and every woman
coming into this creation is totally incapable of meeting those demands,
answering to those laws, and escaping those judgments. There has come one Man
into this world, Who also was made under the law, Who
came under the laws and judgments of the infinitely holy God, but who was ABLE
to stand up to them, to fulfil them, to satisfy God.
Not only did He do that as for Himself, but there was a point in His career
here on this earth where He stepped right into the place of other men,
accepting all the weakness of all the race of men, and was then made sin, and
tasted death in the behalf of every man. But because of that sinlessness which was inherent in Him, He could survive and
not be engulfed in the condition which He had voluntarily accepted for other
men, and through the eternal Spirit, the indestructible Spirit, the timeless
Spirit, and therefore the deathless Spirit of God, He overcame that condition
which He accepted in a voluntary way, swallowed it up in all its power, its
awfulness, its blackness, and its consequences of judgment, and overcame, not
only in an isolated way for Himself in what He was, but in a related way for
all men … God having taken that One into His presence, and made Him the Head. Faith
in the Lord Jesus, we are taught, means that the righteousness which is true of
that Man is put to the account of those who believe, and thus He is made from
God righteousness to us. That is a state in Christ for us.
Righteousness goes beyond justification. Justification
brings us into a standing, but righteousness in Christ means that that standing
could be eternally maintained. Justification means that we stand acquitted. But
what is our hope that we shall not again go back onto the old ground and lose
that position? It is the righteousness of Christ which is eternal,
indestructible, deathless, incorruptible. The case,
then, is not one of faith only for a standing, but faith in a righteousness
which abides, abiding righteousness to keep us there in that position with God.
It is one thing to be brought to a position. It is another thing to have put to
our account that which can keep us there eternally. Righteousness is that which
establishes justification as an eternal thing. It is ours through faith. He is
made unto us righteousness from God.
He is made unto us sanctification from God. Notice the
direction of this. Where does sanctification originate? From whence does it
come? Does it come from our effort, from our struggle, from our endeavour? Does it come from our consecration? No, it does
not! Sanctification comes from God: in this sense, that before ever we could be
for God, God Himself singled us out for Himself. God singled Israel out from
the nations for Himself. That was their sanctification. It came from God — “Ye did not choose me, but I chose you” (John
15:16). Sanctification originates with the initiative of God, and all that we
shall ever be or do in a sanctified life will be because God started it, God
initiated it, God singled us out, chose us to be His own.
The foundations of sanctification are not in our efforts to
be holy, nor in our decision to be holy. The foundation of sanctification is in
God’s laying hold of us to be all for Himself. All our efforts would be in vain
if God had never made us His own. But to be the Lord’s
carries with it the fact that we are wholly separated. Separation is not unto
sanctification; it is because of sanctification.
Let your reason for not having anything to do with what is
not of the Lord be that you are the Lord’s. Do not break off this and that so
as to be the Lord’s, but recognize that you are His, that He has chosen you,
and you have then the basis and the dynamic for a holy life. It is in Christ.
To be in Christ means that we are the Lord’s, and carries with it the truth
that we are wholly the Lord’s. There must be no violation of that: and this
implies the recognition of a position which carries with it a state. The
recognition of that, and the acceptance of it by faith, is the power of a holy
life. We are sanctified by faith, even as we are justified by faith. How are we
sanctified by faith? By believing that in Christ we are holy, that God has
purposed we should be holy through our being in Him. Anything unholy is a
contradiction, and God is against it. God is for holiness, and would have us
recognize the fact, and receive that holiness in His Son Whom He has given.
Redemption is more than justification, more than
righteousness, more than sanctification. Why does it come last? Surely, we
might say, Paul has made a slip! He ought to have said, Now Christ is made unto
us redemption, righteousness, sanctification! Surely that is the order of
doctrine! No! there is no mistake. The order is
correct, and the statement accurate as it stands. We so often think of
redemption in the limited sense of the ransom paid at the beginning by which we
are set free. But that is a mere fragment of redemption. Look at 1 Corinthians
15 and see to what point redemption leads. It leads right out of this body of
humiliation, right out of the last remnant and vestige of corruptibility, into
a spirit glorified in a glorified body. Go back to Romans 8:23, where you have
that stated emphatically — “...waiting
for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Redemption is the
full and final consummation of the whole work of new creation in spirit, soul
and body, and in the whole creation outside: for “...the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption...”
(verse 21). That is redemption. Redemption carries you
right on to the end, and that is why it comes last here.
Redemption is an immense thing. And Christ is made
redemption unto us. In Christ that is secured to us. It is beautiful to know
that we are justified and stand before God. It is good to know that that
righteousness, unimpeachable, incorruptible, is put to our credit. It is good
to know that in Christ we are sanctified. But, oh, see to what that is leading.
It is leading to glorification in every part of our being, and in every part of
this creation, this universe. That is redemption in Christ Jesus. “He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord.”
The Lord brings all this and gathers it up into one word
“grace.” While the word itself is not used, you can never have a more beautiful
exposition of grace than you have here. “But
of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom...” God has
chosen the foolish, the weak, the despised, and the things which are not, and
brought them through to that. God chose! That is repeatedly stated. It is of
Him that we are in Christ. Is that not grace? Foolish, weak, despised nothings
in this world brought through to that in Christ: and it is all of God — “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was
made unto us wisdom from God (out from God unto us), and righteousness and
sanctification, and redemption.” It is all the divine work. All comes from
God. All is grace.
What an argument that is against this wisdom of this world!
It argues in these two ways. In the first place all this says that the wisdom
of this world is intended to make something of man. Man wants to be something
in himself. He wants to be wise, and by his wisdom he
wants to have power, to be able to do because he knows, and it is all the bolstering
up of man. Thus the Greeks came to worship the most perfect man that they could
find. The best philosopher was worshipped. The best athlete was worshipped. The
man of wisdom and strength was the object of worship amongst the Greeks. It was
making something of man, and wisdom was all to make man something.
That rules Christ out, and it rules out everything being of
God, if it is all of man. Which will you have? Are you going to have this
inflation of humanity? Where will it end? To what will it lead? Perhaps a few years of fame? “Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown...” How true that is:
“a corruptible crown!” So you come to the Pantheon, and you find that
one wise man, one philosopher, and one athlete, succeeds another. Every year
the one who was at the top is superseded, and that is how it goes on. Fame and
influence may last for a year, but you will be very lucky if you get beyond
that. That is the value of this world’s wisdom and power, a transient thing, no
more permanent than the laurel crown of its reward. But here is a wisdom
established upon the weakness, the foolishness, the nothingness of the human
element: fadeless, immortal, eternal, heavenly. That is the argument between
the wisdom from above and the wisdom from beneath. And when these are compared,
which is wisdom? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world, seeing what
the heavenly wisdom is? What does your heart say to that? When you see the
heavenly wisdom, and its possibilities, and its fruit, do you not say that the
wisdom of this world is foolishness compared with that? God HAS MADE
foolish the wisdom of this world, and God HAS MADE weak the strength of
this world, by a revelation of the heavenly wisdom, the heavenly power in
Christ.
It all resolves itself into a matter of whether we are
prepared to accept the working of the cross of Christ crucified. Of course,
facing it like this you agree, you assent, you say: Yes, of course, there is no
other choice to be made. Are you prepared to be regarded by the world every day
that you live as utterly foolish, as nothing, as having no existence? That is
literally what the words mean. You might say in an hour of enthusiasm, Oh, yes!
Ah, but it is not so easy. Many a battle has to be fought against the proneness
of this human nature to be something, against its desire to be able to hold its
own, to make an equal show with others. How against this nature weakness is!
How we cry out against weakness. It is, then, a question of whether we are
prepared to have the working of Christ crucified in the whole constitution of
nature, so that the result is the complete ruling out of ourselves and the
utter ruling in of Christ.
Paul relates all this to the living person of Christ. As
Chrysostom said in his own quaint way, “Paul always nails it with nails to
Christ.” He meant that Paul always brings it in in relation to the living
Person: not talking doctrine, not things, not sanctification, redemption,
righteousness as doctrines, but the living Christ. It is, after all, the
question of how far Christ is to eclipse us, totally eclipse us.
In the Greek world in these New Testament days a slave was
regarded as having no existence apart from his master. He dare not have his own
thoughts: he dare not have his own mind, his own will, his own ways, his own
plans, his own workings. He was but the shadow of his master. He had completely
to sink his own personality into that of his master. That is why Paul
constantly calls himself the bondslave of Jesus
Christ. In effect he means, I have sunk my own individuality, my own
personality, into Christ — “For me to live is Christ,” the shadow of my Master!
“We have the mind of Christ,” His thoughts, His ways; and that implies the
transcendence of Christ over ourselves at every point. Paul gloried in that He
did not think it something of great cost and sacrifice to let himself go to Christ. He gloried in the fact that he was a bondslave of Jesus Christ, because he gloried in Christ. It
is, once again, what Christ is from God to us, and this it is as much our glory
to accept as our necessity.
We may talk much about the cross. It is
necessary for us to speak about the working of the cross, because it is
necessary for us to be reminded of the method. But what is far more than all is
the utter and absolute Lordship and dominion of Jesus Christ. That carries with
it the cross. You will never know that relationship apart from the cross. The
cross is the way to that, but the object in view is not to be crucified. Do not
live as though the one thing in life is to be constantly crucified, to have to
die, die, die, and to be shut up with this as the only subject to which your
thoughts are ever given. Let us be concerned with the positive side, which will
include the former, with Christ all, and in all, the complete eclipsing of ourselves
by Him. The eclipsing work will be by the cross, but the end will be Christ!
And what a Christ! “Hallelujah, what a Saviour!” “He that glorieth, let
him glory in the Lord.” The Lord put more glorying in Him into our hearts.
Reading: 1 Corinthians 3.
These words are carefully chosen: the
supreme importance of a living and clear apprehension of Christ. If it were
necessary to show how supremely important that is, it could be done very easily
without going outside of this first letter to the Corinthians; for undoubtedly
all the sad, the tragic, the terrible conditions with which the apostle had to
deal in the assembly at Corinth were due to an inadequate apprehension of
Christ. But there is very much more than what we find in this letter to prove
this necessity, and it is upon perhaps one aspect of the necessity that we
shall dwell more particularly at this time.
In the third chapter there occur the
familiar words about the foundation and the building. The apostle says: “I laid
a foundation... other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which
is Jesus Christ. But if any man buildeth on the
foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; each man’s work
shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in
fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is.” (verses 10-13) — “the fire shall prove each man’s work of
what sort it is.”
We need to ask the question: What work
is it that is referred to there? To what does that relate, “…each man’s work?” I do not think the apostle is here referring to
Christian service. That is the common idea about this passage,
that it relates to the work which we do for the Lord. Of course, that
comes into the category of things tried by the fire, and of things manifested
in that day. But I do not think that is the thing which the apostle has in mind
when he writes this. I believe he is rather thinking of the substance of faith.
We are building a Christian life: we are building ourselves up on Christ; we
are constructing and constituting Christianity in ourselves. We have been doing
this for a long time, and this superstructure of our Christian lives is
composed of the things which we believe, the things which we accept, the things
to which we give assent; everything that we gather in to make up the Christian
life. We are Christians, and the make-up of ourselves as Christians is going on, is increasing, and in that way we are building. It is
the substance of our faith that is in question, using the word “faith” in its
largest sense.
It is at that point that the whole
argument of the apostle has its application, so far as this letter is
concerned. Just there in the make-up of the Christian life of every one of us,
that which constitutes the substance, the material, the elements, the features,
it is there that the apostle is applying this great difference between earthly
and heavenly wisdom. These Greeks at Corinth, because of their natural
inclination and disposition to reduce everything to a philosophy, had taken up
Christianity very largely in that way, regarding it as a philosophy, and
handling it as such: examining, dissecting, appraising according to the
standards of worldly wisdom, philosophical thought, and interpretation. So they
looked at the preaching, the teaching, from that standpoint, and in a mental
way, an intellectual way, took hold of Christian truth and made it, with human,
worldly-wise interpretation, the substance of being Christians, the
constituents of a Christian life. They were building on the right foundation.
Christ was there as the foundation laid by the
apostle. But they were building upon that foundation, a worldly interpretation
of Christianity, a philosophical structure in
Christian doctrine, terminology, phraseology, ideas, conceptions and it was
becoming a purely mental, intellectual, academic thing. That is what they were
building up. It had no living relationship to their inward condition. It was
purely external. The result was that, while they had all that worldly structure
of Christianity, Christian thought, and Christian ideas, and Christian
doctrines, they were behaving in the most shocking manner amongst themselves
and in holy things.
It was at that the apostle launched
this word: “...let each man take heed how
he buildeth thereon” (1 Cor. 3:10). In other
words, that which is of supreme importance is not Christian doctrine, mentally
appraised and apprehended, but a living and clear spiritual apprehension of
Christ. That is the work. What are you building? Are you, through a living,
clear, inward, experimental relationship with the Lord Jesus, building a
structure which comes out of that inward spiritual knowledge? Is it by that you
are growing? Or are you growing by things said and mentally judged, appraised,
dissected, accepted, assented to? What is the nature
of the building? The work in which we are engaged, to which this phrase “each man’s work” applies, is the
building of Christ livingly into the very substance of our being, into the very
fabric of our lives. It is not a question of getting to know a great deal about
Christianity. Let us note that. The heart of the whole matter is the difference
between the philosophy of Christianity, of Christian doctrine and the spiritual
knowledge of Christ.
Now we come to a further point. “Each man’s work shall be made manifest:
for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire
itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is” (1 Cor. 3:13). What
is the fire? We have, as we see, the clause “for
the day shall declare it,” which no doubt applies to the day of the Lord’s
appearing, but I think there is an application of the words “the fire itself shall prove” in that
day, which is specific, which is along a certain line.
Passing over to another part of the
Scriptures, let us ask what the nature of the devouring by the dragon is in
Revelation 12:4. There we see the great red dragon standing waiting to devour
the man-child the moment he is born. What is the character of the devouring? How
will the dragon seek to devour? I do not think it would be an adequate answer
to say that this is a way of describing a great persecution from without, a
physical persecution of the saints. That is not an adequate explanation;
because the Blood of the Lamb is not the ground upon which you overcome
physical persecution. You go through physical persecution,
you are not delivered out of it. You can appeal to the Blood of the Lamb as
much as you like in the day of persecution from without, and the Blood of the
Lamb does not avail to release you from it. There is a support through it. But
here in this twelfth chapter of Revelation the man-child is seen escaping the
jaws of the dragon, being delivered from him, and being caught up to the
throne. It is an absolute deliverance from the dragon who
stands waiting to devour. Now what is the nature of the devourer? The nature of
the devourer is explained by the nature of the victory. “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb,
and because of the word of their testimony...” It may be outwardly they
suffer death, loving not their lives even unto death, but there is something
inward which means that, even while they are delivered up unto death outwardly,
they overcome spiritually.
Here is something in which these escape
the dragon and are not swallowed up by him; and that will tell you, if you
think for a moment, what the nature of the devourer is. It seems to me that the
devourer is related to the faith of the overcomer. It is a matter of swallowing
up their faith. Faith in what? Faith
in all that upon which they stand for their eternal salvation. The
accuser is there, and if, with no more multiplication of words, we reduce it to
this, you will see what we mean. It is a question precisely of an inward
spiritual, living relationship to Christ Himself. In that day, when the enemy
moves in that intensified form against an overcomer-company to swallow that
company up, there will be the most severe and intense testing and trying out of
an inward relationship to the Lord.
It will certainly come along one line,
if not entirely along the one line, namely, of being tempted to believe that
the whole foundation has given way. In other words, the great effort of the
adversary will be to bring to a place where the hope of salvation is gone,
where the saints have had cut from under them their assurance in Christ. The
devouring will be in relation to their faith, the awful blackness of being out
of the pale and hope of salvation. That is not mere hypothesis; that is an
actuality. There are many true children of God in that affliction now, and the
enemy is pressing that, and will press that more and more toward the end. You
and I, beloved, by reason of being given certain conditions and circumstances:
physical, circumstantial, mental, will be tested on that matter, tested right
out as to what we have been using to build with. What does your building
represent? Is it so much teaching, so much doctrine, so much theory, so many
meetings, so many prayers, so much Bible reading, Bible study, so much activity
in the Lord’s work? Is that the structure? Supposing it all goes, and you are
no longer able to do anything: no longer able to pray, no longer able to study
the Word, no longer able to go to the meetings, no longer able to work for the
Lord outwardly, what do you have left? Supposing all that structure is all that
you have, and your whole Christian life is represented by that, and it all
goes, what do you have left? Do you have Christ inwardly? That will be the
test.
“Each
man’s work shall be made manifest... the fire shall prove each man’s work of
what sort it is.” (1 Cor. 3:13). The work is that which
we are doing now in the building up of our Christian lives. What are we using?
What are we working with? I believe that the only thing which will satisfy the
Lord is that we should be able to stand with Him in any place, though it be in hell itself. The Lord might test us by the fires in
that way, as to whether we are able to stand not merely when we are in the good
fellowship of Christian people, with all the helps around us, with all
advantages at our disposal spiritually, but when we are alone, cut off, shut
up, or in some place where it is ninety-nine percent the devil and hell.
What is it that will make it possible
for us to stand in such an hour? Nothing but an inward,
clear, living knowledge of Christ Himself. Each man’s work shall be
tried; the fires shall make manifest of what sort it is. The work relates to
the building up of ourselves as Christians. What is it
that is represented by our Christian lives? Is it the place in which we meet?
Is it the teaching we receive there? Is it anything like that? You may be
assured that that is going to be put in the fire, and then the question will be
how much of Christ has through that become a living, inward reality, a part of
your very being, so that you do not say: I know of certain teaching, and I
belong to a certain fellowship! but, I HAVE CHRIST!
That is our work, and each man’s work shall be tried.
The enemy will stand ready to swallow
up, and he will swallow up all that he can. He cannot swallow up Christ. If
Christ is in us, in a closer relationship with us than any human relationship,
so that Christ has become a very part of us, the enemy cannot devour that.
The foundation is Christ, and the
structure must be Christ. The foundation is not our decision, our beliefs, our
attainments spiritually; not our accuracy, not our works, not the measure of
our knowledge, not our spiritual ability, not our measure of strength, not our
mind or our will, not our activities for the Lord, and not our persistence. It
is nothing of ourselves, it is Christ. When you come
to think about it, is not that just where the enemy gains his advantage? So many of us have thought that unless we can do certain things, or
be of a certain mind, we can have no assurance. The Lord would teach us
— and this is the lesson that my heart is bent upon learning, and that I would
urge upon you to make your quest also — that the ground of assurance is not in
our having decided for Christ, nor that we persist in the Christian life, nor
that we feel strong, nor that we have certain ability as Christians and are
able to do this or that. It is not the measure of our activity in the work of
the Lord, nor any one of these things which constitutes our Christian life.
These are simply the outworkings. The thing which
constitutes us is that Christ is the foundation, and that we are inseparably
linked with Him by faith. Everything else can be suspended as a secondary
consideration until that is settled. It is as though God, if we may put it this
way to try to simplify the truth, had given us His Son and had said to us: In
Him you have everything, and the first thing is not what you are, what you can
do, or anything to do with you; it is what He is! If only in the face of all
you may see of a multitude of contradictions in your own life in weaknesses,
and imperfections, and lack of attainment, you will persistently believe in Him
as having it in Himself to bring you through to the end, you will go through in
spite of all. We begin to take stock of ourselves, measure ourselves up, and
say: I am not this, and I am not that, and I am not something else; or else, I
am this, and I am that, and all this goes against me. Nothing of all this is to
the point at all. The totality of every divine requirement in us is in Christ.
The very last stroke of our
sanctification and glorification is finished now in Christ, and by faith we
have to receive the end of our salvation. The only way in which we are related
to the matter at all is by faith. Of course faith is always proved in
obedience. Perhaps someone will say: You are simply ignoring and ruling out our
responsibility entirely! We are doing nothing of the kind. We are saying that
our responsibility is faith, and faith works out in obedience. But never let us
think that it is our faith or our obedience that saves us. It is Christ who
saves, Christ who is salvation, and there is nothing more dynamic unto a life
of consecration than seeing what Christ is for us. The dynamic of consecration
is not in struggling to be something; it is in seeing Him.
Perhaps none of us have realized that
the Holy Spirit never co-operates with our struggling. The Holy Spirit never
comes along and assists in our endeavours to be good.
Have you not proved that? The Holy Spirit never comes along and lends His aid
to us to solve our problems concerning ourselves while we dwell upon our own
problems. Have you not discovered that? Why not let that be settled? The Holy
Spirit stands back while we struggle to solve our own spiritual problems. What
is He waiting for? He is waiting for us to apprehend Christ by faith, and then
He will come in and work on that ground. The Holy Spirit works because of what
Christ is, not for any reason to be found within ourselves. Faith’s
apprehension of the perfection of Christ, in His Person and work, provides the
ground for the Holy Spirit to come and make that good progressively in us.
Stand apart from the perfection of Christ, and you will make no progress. Stand
on the ground of the finality of Christ, and the Holy Spirit begins His
operations to make it good. There is all the difference between seeing
Christianity as a system of life to which you have to conform: a standard to
which you have somehow or other to attain; an objective Christianity presented
in a systematic doctrine, and seeing that Christ is that fully and finally; and
Christ livingly in you is the ground of your conformity.
It is not found in anything that can come
from us. God chose the foolish things. Why? To make the
wisdom of God everything. God chose the weak things. Why? To make His
power in Christ the only power of which such weak things have any knowledge.
God chose the base things. Why? In order that that which is noble in Christ
should be the only honour of which they know, which
they have. God chose the things which are not. Why? In order
that He should be the only reality. God’s activities are not directed
toward making something of us, but God takes account of the fact that no matter
how much we struggle and strive we never can be
anything. He takes account of the fact that there is a nothingness upon which
He can put His all. But you and I have to recognize that that is the place of
the Cross, if we have not come to it. It opens up such tremendous possibilities
when we see that God does begin at zero, that
everything of God is bound up with the place where we see, as to ourselves,
that we are out of it. But how we are concerned with ourselves! We must settle
it that we in ourselves are of no account, and that Christ is all.
The order in this first letter to the
Corinthians is, firstly, Christ crucified, as over against the wisdom of this
world, the wisdom of men. The latter, to the Greeks, represented everything
that man cares about. I do not know whether Paul would have written the same
thing to this Western world that he wrote to them. When he wrote to the Hebrews
he did not write about the wisdom of this world, because other things were
pre-eminent with them. If he were writing to this Western world, I wonder if
perhaps he might speak more of financial acquisition, and would say: Now, when
I came to you, brethren, I came not to talk about financial acquisition. I
determined to know nothing about financial acquisition amongst you! just as he said to the Greeks at Corinth, And I, brethren,
when I came unto you... I determined not to know anything among you about
worldly wisdom, philosophy. That was the import of his declaration. Whatever it
may be, and in whatever part of the world, the principle is that the
fundamental obstruction has to go and Christ crucified has to take its place.
Related to that, the next thing to be
noted is the utter nothingness of those who are in Christ. We are said to be “in Christ” — “...of him are ye in
Christ...” (1 Cor. 1:30). Who is the “ye?” The foolish, the weak, the ignoble, the
things which are not, the nothings, all those whom God has chosen.
The sum of the whole matter is the
importance that is given to life in the Spirit, or a spiritual state. Read
again the second and third chapters.
“Things
which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of
man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him. But unto us God
revealed them through the Spirit”
(verses 9-10).
“For who among men knoweth the
things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him? even so the things of God none knoweth,
save the Spirit of God.”
“The
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of
God,” and he that is spiritual, that is, who
has come into a spiritual state by renewal and the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit, comes into the realm of the knowledge of Christ as God’s fullness, the
things which God hath laid up in Christ for them that love Him. A life in the
Spirit is what is signified, which means, firstly, a spiritual state of
government by the Holy Spirit. From this in turn there
results a condition in which the Spirit is found revealing Christ and making
Christ everything. “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
If the devourer is going to be cheated
of his object, if you and I are not going to come under that awful onslaught of
the prince of darkness to rob us of our assurance of salvation, so that the
time comes when we doubt whether we are saved after all, doubt whether there is
any salvation for us, we must recognize that there is a place in the innermost
chamber of our being where we have to know the Lord. Does it seem impossible to
you that you could ever reach a point where you doubt your salvation? There are
possibilities for every one of us along that line which are fearful. You have
only to have a nervous breakdown and, as the entail of it, the devil strutting
in to becloud your mind and trade upon your melancholy, to know the truth of this.
You have only to be cut off from all your activities, where you cannot pray any
longer for some reason or other, where you cannot do your accustomed work in
the Word of God, where the Christian service which has been such a delight is
taken away from you, and you are shut up in a state of weakness, aloneness,
with loss of vitality, and depression to which these minds and bodies of ours
are prone, and then have the devourer, encamping upon it all, and beginning to
say: God has left you, you have sinned against the Holy Ghost! and to listen to that once, to find yourself engulfed. We
have to know the Lord in that innermost chamber of our being, so that, be it
mental and physical breakdown, circumstances all against us, all these things,
there is that inward grip, that inward reality of Christ which is adequate to
stand up to this situation. That is our need.
It must not be ninety percent of
externalities in the Christian life, or seventy-five percent, or fifty percent.
These things are good: let us make the most of them. But let us continually go
to the Lord on our knees and say: Lord, these meetings are good, and it is
gracious of You to give us these fellowships and helps: but I must know You in
my own heart, lest the day come when the fellowship is blown upon and scattered
to the four winds and all these things are taken away, and I am left stranded
because my life has stood in the power of outward activities and not in knowing
the Lord. Plead with the Lord about that. Have an understanding with the Lord about
that. Let us see to it that the building which is going on where we are
concerned is the building of Christ Himself into the very fibre
of our being. Then the devourer will be eluded, the overcomer will be caught up
to the Throne, and the devourer will go away to the wilderness to persecute the
rest of the woman’s seed. What kind of wilderness is this? It is the wilderness
in which some believers are found now. They have lost the assurance of their
salvation: and that is an awful wilderness. God save us from that.
Reading: 1 Cor. 1:1-10.
Two things remain to be said about this
introductory section to this letter. One is that it represents the position of
the Lord’s people in Christ. Quite clearly all that is said there does not
directly apply, so far as conditions were concerned, to the whole Corinthian
assembly. But the letter is written to the whole assembly, and this salutation
is addressed to the whole assembly, and therefore it represents a condition in
Christ to which that of the church itself may not
altogether correspond. What we are in Christ, and what
we are found to be in our own spiritual condition may be quite different
things. But what we are in Christ becomes the basis of the appeal to us as to
the condition in which we may be found actually.
The other thing is that clearly the
whole church at Corinth was not bad. While there were sections there to which
the apostle had to write such severe things by way of rebuke, and admonition,
and exhortation, the whole church was not in that state.
I suppose the same could be said of all
the churches in the days of the apostle, that there were two sides to them.
There was that side which was good and noble, and there was that which was
subject to warning and rebuke. The object of the letters, almost invariably,
was to seek to bring all into the full position as represented in Christ. We
could say that there were those who were failing, who were in defeat, who were doing anything but commending the Gospel and
glorifying the Lord Jesus, while on the other hand there were those who were
overcoming the very things which encircled them, and which in character were
contrary to the Lord’s mind. In all the churches there were the “overcomers” and the “undercomers!”
The appeal is always to the full
thought of the Lord, and almost invariably, if not always, the letters are so
introduced that the complete standard in Christ, God’s full thought concerning
the saints in Christ, is placed right on the threshold, and everything which
follows moves from that and to that. It becomes the basis of the appeal, the
basis of the exhortation, the basis of the warning, of the entreaty, the
rebuke, the counsel, the instruction. It is all in order that that which is
representative of God’s full will for the saints might
be expressed in all the saints.
Turn to Deuteronomy 33:8-11. Verse 8
reads, “And of Levi he said, Thy Thummim and thy Urim are with thy
godly one...” (the margin has “him whom thou lovest”). Levi is an Old
Testament illustration and type of the overcomer of the New Testament, and in
these verses containing the blessing of Levi we have the foundations of the
overcomer, the nature of the overcomer, and the function of the overcomer.
Levi is represented as expressing a
very full thought of God. There is something about this statement concerning
Levi, which puts Levi in a very honoured position, in
a class by themselves. There is a contrast between the tribe of Levi and the
other tribes. That contrast was brought out very clearly in the day of Israel’s
departure from the Lord, when Aaron made the golden calf while Moses was in the
mount with God. You will remember how in coming down from the mount Moses heard
the noise of the revelry in the camp and discovered the apostasy of Israel, the
spiritual declension which had taken place. There had entered in something of
the past life, the life of the world, the life of Egypt from which God had
separated them, and they had taken a much lower spiritual level. As soon as
Moses reached the camp and had taken in the situation, he immediately went and
stood in the gate of the camp, and cried:
“Whoso is on the Lord’s side, let him come unto me.” Then the sons of Levi
went out of the camp to Moses, and Moses said: “Put ye every man his sword upon his thigh, and go to and fro from gate
to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his
companion, and every man his neighbour.” (Exodus
32:27). It was to be a complete slaughter, without respect of persons, and the
Levites went into the camp and dealt with those with whom they were personally
associated and with whom they had responsibility. Their attitude was so
uncompromising for the Lord that it was possible for these words to be said of
them: “Who said of his father, and of his
mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew
he his own children...” (Deut. 33:9). For the Levites the Word of the Lord
took a place above all natural relationships, affections, and considerations,
so that everything which was in the realm of the natural life was subjected to
the known will of God, and was not allowed in any way to influence where the
question of the full thought of God was concerned. Were we to consider this
thing purely on the human level we should say that these Levites slew their own
hearts, in so far as their hearts were apart from the revealed will of God.
They smote themselves in the realm of all their natural affections and
interests, dominated by the full thought of God’s will.
Here is our link with what is before
us. When you come to the first letter to the Corinthians and the second chapter
you find that is the principle underlying what the apostle is saying about the
natural man and the spiritual man. God’s full thought at Corinth is represented
in the introductory words “...sanctified
in Christ Jesus, called... saints.” That true, full thought of God is violated, destroyed in Corinth, because of these natural
elements which are governing the lives of His children there. They have not
slain the natural wisdom, the natural mind, the natural heart in its affections
and its desires. The devotion to all that God has set before them is not such
that every merely natural influence is set on one side. The apostle is obliged
to say all that he does about the natural heart and mind governing because
there are merely natural considerations influencing these people and keeping
them and the assembly back from God’s full thought. The result is that you have
a situation revealed later in the letter which corresponds to what happened
while Moses was in the mount: that is, a departure from God, spiritual
declension, idolatry, sensuality, and all such things, for we do not know all
that happened when Aaron set up that molten calf. It is necessary to look into
the Bible a good deal more fully to have a true inkling of what happened at
that time. Read Acts 7, and you will have a little
more light upon it. The narrative in the Old Testament immediately connected
with the incident is very brief and incomplete. You must remember that there
was distinct gross sensuality associated with the worship of the molten calf.
They stripped themselves of their clothes, and their behaviour
was most unseemly in that worship. It was a real drop into heathen debauchery.
It was a terrible situation.
In Corinth you have a very serious and
bad situation of sin and spiritual declension revealed, and in both cases the
cause is the same, namely, the coming into the realm of the things of God of
the natural man, the old man. Levi put all that out. The natural affections and
the natural mind were entirely cut off, with God’s full thought in view. That
is the overcomer. The Levites left that sin, that state, and went out of it,
outside of the camp, and first of all spiritually separated themselves from it,
and then from a position of spiritual separation dealt with it. That is always
the way. You can never register an effective blow against corruption while you
are involved in it. You have to be spiritually apart from it before there can
be an influence registered upon it.
This is an assembly principle. No
assembly can deal with evil in its midst until it has spiritually separated
itself therefrom and repudiated it. Whenever unrighteousness is known to be in
the midst a stand must be taken where that is recognized as evil and an
uncompromising attitude adopted toward it.
We cannot on the ground of sentiment,
or through any kind of natural consideration, be in any way involved in that.
That is evil. God is not in it. God is not with it, and therefore we must
spiritually be apart from it. Until that utter cleavage, that utter separation
in spirit and in mind, has taken place, there can be no dealing in spiritual
power and authority with evil. That is to say, evil will obtain, will hold, will maintain its grip, until there is a spiritual
separation from it. The Levites separated themselves, and then from a position
of spiritual separation dealt with the thing. That is God’s order. That is the
overcomer, the one who is spiritually apart, and who, being in that place of
separation with God, is a mighty, effective testimony against evil, not in word
but in power, even when that evil is amongst the Lord’s people.
Levi is an excellent illustration of
New Testament things, and we can see the Levitical
principle at Corinth just as we see it elsewhere, a SPIRITUAL separation
in a day of SPIRITUAL declension. It must be a spiritual thing. It is
not enough that it should be merely a geographical thing. You can separate
yourself from other Christians, and be yourself a carrier of the same kind of
trouble, and have nothing but repetitions of the same thing. It must be first
of all a spiritual separation, whatever else may become necessary, whatever else may follow. It is a matter of the heart.
What is this separation? In other
words, what is it that characterizes the overcomer? It is heart separation unto
the Lord for His full thought, whatever it may cost. That may mean an
uncompromising attitude toward your own sentiments, your own natural reasoning
about things. God’s full thought demands that there shall be no argument
whatever in favour of a thing which is against God.
Then note what follows. We have seen
the nature of the overcomer, the nature of the Levite; but what follows when
that state obtains, when the Lord has a people whose hearts are circumcised in
that way? The Word in Deuteronomy says: “Thy
Thummim and thy Urim are
with him whom thou lovest.” (RV margin) We will
not stay to go into details with regard to the Thummim and the Urim (Lights and Perfections), but we know they were the means by which Israel got
to know the mind of the Lord, and that is sufficient for our present purpose.
So the Lord puts Himself in a special relationship to the Levites, and that
special relationship is for the purpose of making Himself
known to them, in order that through them He may become known to others. That
is what follows. “They shall teach Jacob
thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put incense before thee, and
whole burnt offering upon thine altar.” (Deut.
33:10).
The overcomer, then, becomes the
instrument and the vehicle of divine revelation, divine instruction. Come to 1
Corinthians again, and mark how over against the natural man you have the
spiritual man. And both these terms, let us note, have to do with believers in
the assembly. “Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him (in other words, he has no Thummim and Urim).
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man. For
who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him? But we have
the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:14-16). The spiritual man, who has
discriminated between the natural mind and the mind of the Spirit, is the man
with whom the Thummim
and the Urim
are found, the knowledge of the Lord.
So then there is a great and privileged
position to be occupied by those who, setting aside the whole of the natural
life in its judgments and its affections, will at all
costs stand for God’s full thought. This great and privileged position is that
of being God’s vehicle of illumination to others. How are we going to be those
who teach Jacob the Lord’s ordinances and Israel His law? How is this ministry
going to be constituted? It never comes by mere studying. A minister of
revelation is not merely one who has studied the Bible very thoroughly, and all
relative books and subjects, and has become very highly versed in Scriptural
matters. Such are not the instruments of divine revelation, of making God known
to others. Those who will fulfil such a ministry of
revelation, where it is not they themselves who are revealing God, but God
revealing Himself through them, are those who have come clear of the natural
mind, and of all that which is represented by the term “the natural mind.” Such are in the place of the spiritual man,
with God’s full purpose dominating their hearts and mind. They are standing for
that — and it costs and they are paying the price.
Do you think that while Levi shut their
eyes as it were to what they were doing it cost them nothing? You do not cut
off your own children without feeling it, your own kin, without suffering
yourself as much as they suffer. It was no mere cold, unfeeling brutality which
governed Levi. It was, if we may use the word, the stringing of themselves up to a point where jealousy for the one thing
prevailed, namely, God’s honour. God’s glory must get
the better of natural feelings in this matter, and it costs to come thus right
out from the realm of nature. It costs to stand in that position where Christ
is your wisdom, and Christ is your strength, and you have none of your own. You
might have strength in nature; you might have wisdom in nature; you might have
position, reputation, influence amongst men; there
might be all that in the realm of nature, but you deliberately look beyond that
realm. You have to be a fool for Christ’s sake, and a weakling for Christ’s
sake, and altogether outside of the camp of this world for Christ’s sake. You
might have had reputation and influence had you gone the way of nature, but God
in His full desire and purpose and thought has become dominant, and you have
cut this other thing off; you have repudiated it. And now from this world’s
standpoint, and from your own estimate of your natural state from your position
in Christ, you know that you are a fool, that you are
a weakling, that you are nothing, of no account at all, but you are for God.
Christ is now your wisdom. Christ is the only strength you are ever going to
count upon. Christ is everything. You do not get there without feeling things
keenly at times. It is very often brought home to you what a position like that
means of suffering and reproach. To the natural man, to the flesh, weakness,
dependence, is no pleasant thing. To the flesh competence, ability, capability are the things which gratify, and which we love.
It is a terrible thing to feel ourselves so utterly dependent, but it is
glorious to see the Lord coming in all the time, and being the full resource.
Yet we know that the sense of dependence has to be maintained. It is along that
line that God gets His full thought.
It was because there was not that basis, that foundation fully and finally established at
Corinth that God’s full thought was not expressed and represented by the whole
assembly there. The overcomer is the one who is in that position where Christ
is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, and everything in between.
When you get there, or when God gets an individual or a company there, then
there follows a ministry in and by which He is revealed.
That is the kind of training for
ministry that the Bible speaks of. It is not a pleasant training, but it is the
best, the most effective. We can give out a lot of information, a lot of
knowledge, which may please and gratify the mass of people, and they may think
it to be doing them great good, but in the day of the test, the day of the
fire, when the question is, How much of Christ has entered into the very fabric
of the being? We shall see that information does not do that,
book-knowledge does not accomplish that. But a ministry of revelation will do
that, if it is revelation from God; not our revealing of God, but God showing
Himself through the instrument. That is true ministry, and that is preparation
for ministry. It will explain some things to us. When we have handed ourselves
over to the Lord our real preparation comes along the line of the destroying of
the natural fabric, and the constituting of Christ as life, as wisdom, as
strength, as everything. God’s most powerful instruments in the history of this
world have always been those who have gone out in fear and trembling and much
weakness.
Are you prepared to accept a life like
that? There is something for the Lord in an instrument like that. It is first
of all vocation, ministry which is realized. Please do not make a technical
thing of that word “ministry,” and think of it as applying to platforms or
public meetings. If you are wholly for God, standing for God’s full thought on
the ground we have just mentioned, you will be the means of God coming to other
lives, no matter where you are. It is not a question of what you are going to
say to them. You may be troubled often as to what you will say, or as to how
you can say anything in the position in which you are, in that you feel that
people would not listen to you, would take no notice of you. The question is
not what you are going to say. God very often says His loudest things through
most silent people. God can register an impact of Himself by your presence. It
is not always a matter of words. It is a question of the Lord expressing
Himself through those who are standing with Him in this way: that is ministry.
“They
shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put incense
before thee...” If you like to paraphrase that, you
may make it read like this: They shall
prevail with Thee in prayer: they shall fulfil a holy
and effectual ministry of intercession.” “They shall put incense before thee
(the Revised Version margin says “in thy
nostrils” — that is God smelling a sweet savour),
and whole burnt offering upon thine altar (that is surely setting forth the ground of
full acceptance). Bless, Lord, his
substance, and accept the work of his hands (here is a blessing!): smite through the loins of them that
rise up against him, and of them that hate him, that
they rise not again.” The Lord is on the side of those who are utterly for
Him. The Lord will watch over them because His own interests are bound up with
them. Sooner or later it will be seen that they are the Lord’s anointed, and no
hand can be reached out against them without being answered by God in God’s
time. Levi had a very close relationship with all Israel, and all Israel owed
their standing before God to the Levites. The overcomers are appointed of God
to lead the way for the rest into His presence.
May the Lord show us that what He
needs, what He desires, what He is seeking to have in His people, is that state
of heart which is content with nothing less than His whole thought. The people
who are going to count for God are those who pay the price, even if it means
going outside the camp bearing His reproach, who accept that cost, and go with
the Lord, even against themselves in all that is of nature.
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