Reading:
Romans 8:2; Galatians 2:19-20.
The next
aspect of the sevenfold law of life is represented by
Abraham. We are introduced to Abraham at the end of the
eleventh chapter of Genesis.
In
speaking of that aspect of the law of life represented by
Noah, we were considering the necessity for being on
resurrection ground, which implies that the whole ground
of nature has been repudiated and for us lies on the
other side of a flood, a baptism of death. We now regard
ourselves, therefore, as being on resurrection ground,
and, being there, we join hands with Abraham and let him
lead us on and tell us what the next thing is in the
outworking of life.
Life in Christ a Life of Faith
Here, in
a word, we shall find the law of life is bound up with
faith. When we reach resurrection ground as through Noah,
we are inevitably on faith ground. It is well that we
should recognize that at once. It is very nice to
contemplate resurrection life: everybody will give some
response to that idea; we shall not have any controversy
or difficulty in accepting that. But let it be understood
that resurrection ground carries with it inevitably and
inseparably a life of faith. You can know nothing of life
only along the line of faith, and it is along the pathway
of faith that life increases. These two go together; the
one issues from the other.
Our last
emphasis in our meditation on Noah was upon the little
word "out". Noah's testimony, in building the
ark, was to his being out of that realm of things. He was
securing an exodus, a means, a way of getting out. By his
building of the ark, he was declaring, in effect, I am
not in this, I am out of this! So you are not surprised
that the first word about Abraham is that the Lord said,
"Get thee out". It is all of a piece.
But
coming out on to resurrection ground means coming out on
to faith ground. Noah typifies resurrection and Abraham
faith. "Get thee out"! The life itself is a
faith life. I do not mean by that the manner of life, but
the very life itself is a faith life, and the faith which
is the faith of the Son of God is life. Of course, that
is not a profound utterance. You have but to reverse it
to see how simple and elementary that is. Whatever is not
of faith is always of the nature of death. Doubt is
death, unbelief is death, lack of trust is death, and all
things that are in that category. Questions,
controversies, anything that is short of simple faith
brings us to a standstill, brings under arrest. It is
death. So then, the law of life in Abraham is seen
operating along the line of faith, which faith worked
deeper and deeper, producing life in ever increasing
measure. These two things go together. The deeper the
faith the stronger the life. Similarly the greater
measure of life implies the deeper faith.
Here
again we note that we are reversing Adam's evil. In all
these cases, Abel and Noah and Abraham and all the
others, God is working backward. He is reversing Adam's
evil. When you come to Abraham, you see in him God's
triumph over that basic sin of unbelief. These are
figures pointing on to the true. In Christ Jesus all were
gathered up, not in a figurative or representative way,
but in a living, actual way, and Satan's triumph in
Adam's deception and fall was completely reversed,
completely undone; for Christ was manifested to destroy
the works of the Devil. But even here it means, you see,
the works of the Devil are being destroyed in something
more than a merely figurative way. God is reversing the
course of things and undoing Adam's mischief, correcting
things.
Now, we
must look at Abraham and sum up this life in two or three
comprehensive words. I am not going to attempt to cover
Abraham's whole life, not even in outline, but we can
take out some of the main factors in this life of faith.
The Gift of Life is Both from God and
Wholly for God
In the
first place, it was a matter of going out with God alone.
That is what I see to be God's meaning in what we speak
of as "the call of Abraham". "The Lord had
said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from
thy kindred, and from thy father's house" (Gen.
12:1). Thy country, thy kindred, thy father's house! In
the sovereignty of God, Abraham was taken up to be the
vessel of life; that is, in type, in figure. That life,
the life of which we are speaking, is God's alone, and it
must be lived wholly unto God. It cannot be taken hold of
and used in any other relationship. It refuses so to be
used. The life of God refuses to be brought into
relationship with any other thing than God. Immediately
it is so brought over, or immediately there is any
attempt to bring it into another relationship, it stops,
and the vessel in which it dwells comes to a standstill.
That is exactly what happened with Abraham. God said,
"Get thee out of thy country": but He also
said, "from thy kindred and from thy father's
house". It was inclusive, comprehensive, full and
final. Abraham took the first step of faith and not the
second and third. He took kindred and father's house with
him and did not get very far. He came to a standstill,
and there he remained until the rest of the Divine
requirement had been brought about, or at least a large
part of it. Then Abraham moved on: but even so he did not
move completely into the Divine thought, as we shall see
presently. I think you see the point.
This
divine life which is in the child of God by new birth is
God's life and God's life alone, and it cannot be related
to anything else. It will not work with anything else. It
only works in relation to God; God's thought, God's mind,
God's will, and if that life is going to carry us right
through to God's full end, then it has to be wholly unto
God, and there all other relationships have to be set
back. It must not be brought into other relationships.
You see, this life is not just an abstract thing. It is
in Christ Jesus and it is in the hands of the Holy
Spirit. Indeed, we cannot separate these; we cannot
separate the life from the Person, from the Divine
Person. Christ is the life, and the Holy Spirit is the
Spirit of life. So when we are dealing with the life, we
are dealing with the Holy Spirit and we are dealing with
Christ Jesus, and that means that this life, which is the
very essence of God, has its own characteristics, its own
forms, its own meanings, its own standards, its own
objects. It has its own mentality, its own reasons, its
own ways. It is something which has a way of its own, and
a meaning of its own, and a mind of its own, and there is
not another like it. It takes its course. All other ways,
all other mentalities are other indeed, altogether other,
and there is no correspondence between them. When God
says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither
are your ways my ways"; that there is the difference
as of the space between heaven and earth between your
ways and thoughts and Mine, it is only another way of
saying, My life is something altogether different from
yours in its mentality, its judgment, its reasonings, its
characteristics, its nature; different in everything,
altogether other.
Well,
what is the effect of that? It means that it cannot
coexist or have fellowship with anything that is of
nature. It cannot have any companionship with this other
life of ours, with this nature of ours. The natural life
cannot be a friend of the Divine life and the Divine life
cannot be a friend of the natural life. They are in two
different worlds. The natural life, the soul-life of man
has Satanic elements related to it, and the Divine life
has Divine elements related to it, and these are two
different kingdoms altogether. Now, this is a fixed
principle, that this Divine life demands its own
direction and its own relationships. This Divine life
demands what is of God wholly, and I see in "thy
country, thy kindred, thy father's house" those
things which suggest natural relationships and
influences, and God cannot allow that in the presence of
His life in us. Paul said, "When it pleased God to
reveal his Son in me... immediately I conferred not with
flesh and blood" (Gal. 1:16). That would have been
human influence, natural influence, in relation to the
things of God, and that is the principle here. So far as
nature is concerned, this life with God has to be
completely independent.
Now, of
course, I have to be careful in saying that, because we
say so much about the evil of independence. You see, I am
talking in another realm altogether and I want to make
that clear. First of all, anything that is in the nature
of independence spiritually is wrong; I mean as amongst
the Lord's people. It is a violation of the corporate law
of God, which is also a law of life. Again, I am not
speaking of the influence of what is spiritual. We need
spiritual influences, relationships, and help from one
another, and there must be no independence in that
matter, no independence in the matter of what is of God
in others. There are those who say, 'I must walk with
God, I must know God for myself: I can take nothing from
anyone else, I can submit my convictions to no one; I go
on alone with the Lord in my solitary assurance and
conviction.' That may be a very wrong thing. While we
must know the Lord for ourselves, very often the Lord
will make Himself known to us through others who are also
walking with Him. A wrong kind of independence in these
things works to the contrary and we may be utterly in
deception because we will not walk spiritually with
others and our aloneness not be an aloneness with God. It
is a conviction that it is so, but it is an entire
deception. That is one thing; but what I am talking about
now is the influence of nature, not the influence of
spiritual people and spiritual things which are of God.
We need those influences and help and fellowship to go
right through to God's end. But when it is a matter of
natural elements coming in - and they may be many;
sentiment, the natural affection of others seeking to
influence us, and so on - when natural elements come in
to divert us from what we know to be the will of God;
elements, that is, not born of a knowledge of God, not
born of a close walk with God, so as to be the counsel of
God to us through others, then the life of faith demands
that all these shall be fully and finally set aside, and
that we live, so far as our spiritual life is concerned,
unto God, wholly unto God. That was the first test with
Abraham and the first application of the law of life in
his case. Would he go out with God alone, despite all
natural influences? Would he respond to God's movement in
his own heart without allowing natural considerations to
influence him?
For a
long time that was only partial in Abraham's case and
therefore the purpose of God was lying under arrest and
he was only partially moving in the Divine purpose. In
the first place, he took his father with him and that
brought him to a standstill, and not until his father
died was there a further release as to God's purpose. His
life was retarded so long as natural kinship remained to
influence him. But all this has to be applied inwardly as
well as outwardly. I am not just speaking of our
relations, our families. True, it may be there that
natural influences are brought to bear on us, but it is
much more than that. There is within us a kinship, a
relatedness to this earth, to nature. There is that in us
which is always taking counsel with the flesh; fleshly
judgments, fleshly reasonings, the working and influence
of the natural mind, and we have to put it back and cut
it off. All that is of the life of nature must stand back
when we come on to resurrection ground to know life,
because that life is essentially a faith life.
The Proving of the Heart
Now, the
second thing in Abraham was the question of ambition as
to the things of God here on earth. This will find us
out. At length Abraham moved on. Natural influences, so
far as relationships were concerned, were lessened, and
he moved on and came into the land; the promised land,
the fulfilment of great expectations, the thing for which
he let everything else go, the thing for which he had
launched out in faith. He came into the land, the object
of his expectation and his new ambition, and what did he
find? A land full of that which was very contrary to
God's mind, and a mighty famine in the land, and no one
to offer him even a plot. He had not so much as a
foothold in it. I suggest to you that such an experience
is a fairly good test of our ambitions. What do we expect
when we go on with God, when we come right out for God?
What have we in view? Well, the answer to that question
will decide whether, in relation to God, we have
ambitions for something on the earth. Do you get the
point? You see, it is so possible to swing over your
natural ambitions to spiritual aims. It is the same thing
still at work and the only difference is the direction or
sphere. You can be as ambitious in the work of God as you
can be in the world, and it is the same natural ambition.
It is the ambitiousness of nature. You desire - what do
you desire? To see something, to have something, to be in
something? Ambition for success: yes, once it was in the
world, now the same ambition transferred to other things.
If that were true in Abraham's case, what a test! It was
a test of ambition. He got nothing, no not so much as a
foothold in the land. He had to move to and fro, dwelling
in tents. There was no immediate, seen response to his
faith so far as that land was concerned. Under that test,
he broke down; he went down into Egypt. What did his
going down into Egypt imply? Some expectations! He had
expected something different at the hands of God. He had
to be taught that this life is a life of faith, and the
more deeply inwrought that life is, the less shall we see
to gratify nature, even in the things of God.
You see,
it is very often to the children, the kindergarten, the
elementary stages of faith, where there is not the
capacity to take very much strain, that God has to give
quick results and manifest signs. The marks of maturity
are usually the withdrawing of outward manifestations and
signs, the demand to walk with God alone for God's own
sake. It is a mark of graduation in the school of God
that He can withdraw outward things. It shows that we
have passed the test, as to whether we are ambitious in
this life.
Well,
Abraham in the first test, the first application of that
truth, failed, but he blessedly learned his
lesson. We must always give the Lord's servants full
credit for every bit of spiritual gain. In the very next
thing - and it is remarkable that the two incidents
follow one upon the other - you see a marvellous and
glorious triumph in that same realm. In Chapter 12 you
have recorded Abraham's going down to Egypt, and that
being for him the way of death, and not the way of life.
Ambition proved to be the way of death. This is
immediately followed in the succeeding chapter by the
quarrel between the herdsmen of Abraham and the herdsmen
of Lot for pastures and waters. Abraham came to Lot about
the matter and said, in effect, Do not let us quarrel;
for what is there to quarrel about? (Are we wanting
something for ourselves? - that is the purport of his
words). Now Lot, look all round, lift up your eyes,
survey the land: see the very best of the land and take
your choice of it. Just leave me what you like, leave me
the rest: you take your choice. If you decide to go in
this direction or that, then I will readily take the
other. Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the Plain of
Jordan, well watered and fruitful, and chose it: and they
separated themselves the one from the other. On Abraham's
part it is a triumph over ambition. Immediately God comes
in and says, "Lift up now thine eyes... all the land
which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed
for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the
earth..." There lies the way of life, after all. The
way of earthly acquisition, ambition, gratification, of
having something here, became the way of death for Lot.
Abraham let go, so far as this world was concerned, let
go for God, and God came in.
So Lot
was separated from Abraham. What has happened? Is this
the end of that kinship that has all this time been a
cause of limitation? It looks like it. In the day that it
happens, in the day when this natural influence is cut
off, God comes in with a new range of life. It is a true
principle. It is a mark of going on when we can come to
the place where it is true before God that we have let go
all the prosperity and success even of Christian work and
Christian ministry as men would count it. To be able to
let go the great opportunities and the great advantages
that may be had amongst Christian people, and the prizes
that can be grasped, and to say, It is all right, the
Lord knows; it is for Him to give or withhold: I am not
going to make a line for those prizes: I am not going to
allow those things to influence my walk with God:
ambition is not going to dictate my course, is a sure
sign of growth. It may not seem here on earth to mean
very big things; wide open doors and all that, but
somehow you may take it that there is life there,
spiritual influence there, something that is counting
there. In the end it will have counted. But this does
sometimes first of all necessitate that conflict with
ambition where all those suggestions and influences have
to be laid low, and we come to the place where we see the
way of life is to go on with God though it costs us
everything. The law of the Spirit of life works in that
way.
The Divine Use of Delay and Apparent
Contradiction
Now, in
the third place, we see in Abraham's case life working
along what is apparently the way of death in two senses,
namely, the Divine way of delay and of contradiction. God
promised Abraham a son, and, having made the promise,
went away and left the matter there for years; the
delayed fulfilment of promises serving to drive faith in
God deeper down and to prepare the way for something so
transcendently more of God in Abraham's life. The longer
the delay, the more the realization of a hope must be of
God, and the less and less possible is it of man. That is
the thought. God does work in that way, whether we like
it or not. Whether we cherish the thought or not, it is
true. When God is really working according to the law of
life, we have to be brought into this realm of faith
where even the promises of God seem to be suspended and
have no immediate fulfilment. God is going to be true.
God will be no man's debtor. There will never be any
balance against God in the end. We may settle that. God
will come up to all that can be rightly and truly
expected of Him, and there will be at last, even if it be
at long last, an overwhelming justification of God and
attestation of His faithfulness. We are all permitted to
take an attitude such as this: Lord, when I stand before
You at long last, You have to be clear of any ground I
could lay to Your account of having failed my trust. It
is essential to God that He should be in that position.
His very nature and character requires that, in that day,
those who have trusted in Him shall be able to say, Lord,
You have not failed in one thing, but You have done even
more than I had a right to expect, even a right in Christ
to expect. God will come up to that mark, but, in order
to deepen the life, to strengthen the life, to produce
Godlikeness, to destroy the power of death and the work
of Satan, and to reverse the mischief of Adam, God has to
extend us in the matter of faith even over His promises.
He does it. It is a mark of growth, of maturity. Such
then is the Divine ministry of delay.
Then,
further, we have the Divine ministry of contradiction.
The son was given at last: but what then - "Take now
thy son... and offer him..." A contradiction; God
giving and taking, promising fulfilment and then seeming
to wipe it all out with a stroke. Well, what does it
mean? What lies behind this? I think, beloved, that the
heart of things here is that God is always wooing to
Himself, that the heart may be for Him and not for
things. Even if the promises in their fulfilment are
delayed, God is seeking to draw the heart to the place
where it is Himself, rather than what He does for us,
that is its quest. If there is that ministry of
contradiction, its purpose is to woo us from things to
Himself.
God, All in All
Well
now, you have summed up the whole aspect of this law of
life. What is the law of the Spirit of life? How and
where does it operate? On this ground, that, from start
to finish, it is the Lord Himself being everything. That
is the heart of the matter: the Lord Himself everything.
"Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred,
and from thy father's house." Get thee out - out
from ambitions as to things here on earth even in
relation to God. Get thee out of things, as things which
God can do and God can give. Out to where? To God
Himself. And do you recognize the issue - oh, wonderful
thing! - "Abraham my friend." My friend! What a
lot lies behind that! All letting go for God, being
wholly for God, letting God have His way, trusting God
where even God seems to be denying and contradicting
Himself, issues in our coming right into the heart of
God. My friend! Is that life? Is that the way of life?
For that to be said of any of us at last, in the way in
which it was said of Abraham, surely would be life?
Surely it is something to be coveted more than anything
else? If ever we reach that place, we shall say, This is
life indeed! This is worth everything! Yes, life is on
the basis of friendship with God.
What is
friendship with God? Well, it is, what we have said: not
friendship with the world; not friendship with our own
natural life, its influences and considerations; not
friendship even with ambitions, projects and achievements
in the things of God; not friendship with what God can do
for us, but God Himself. That is all. That being so, it
means that, if the Lord delays or contradicts, we
nevertheless trust. You see, friendship is the blotting
out of all enmity. It came in from Satan through Adam,
and was blotted out in Abraham. What does that mean?
Blotted out by faith. Faith will destroy enmity, root and
crop. It is progressive, of course. Abraham had to live a
whole lifetime in this way, but he came out as God's
friend.
And we
are in the way of this life, which is the way of this
faith, and I do trust that we are steadily and surely
moving beyond the place where there is enmity. Is there
any enmity in our hearts to God? Are we disappointed with
God? Are we sore about God? Is there some tinge of
bitterness, is there some reserve? Is there aught of that
kind? We know quite well that is working death in us if
it is there. That is not life. The only way is to let
that life work in accordance with its own law of faith.
Why are we disappointed? Why are we feeling sore? Are we
quite sure it is because the Lord has not proved Himself
to be what we expected? Are we quite sure it is that? Are
we quite sure that it is not because things have not gone
as we wanted them to go, that ambition is disappointed?
Are we quite sure? If only things had worked out as we
desired them to work out, how pleased with God we should
be! How readily we should say, God is faithful, God is
true; we love the Lord! But now things are not working
out, things are not easy: things are hard, things are
going against us. It is because of the things we are
feeling bad. I believe, beloved, if we come to the place
where our objective is the Lord, where He is our goal;
where it is true that "My goal is God Himself, not
joy nor peace, nor even blessing, but Himself my
God," we are in the way of life. But it is the
creeping in of these other considerations and influences
from our natural life that spoil it all. You see that
this issue is a very clear one.
For us,
the way of life demands that we shall get before the Lord
again, and say, 'Lord, though all my earthly prospects
fade, though all my ambitions are disappointed, it is You
I want. You are my ambition, my goal. If I have You,
these other things will count for much less.' I believe
that, as we can get there - and not many of us have got a
long way on that road - but as we can get there, we find
the secret of life, of joy, of release. I am not so sure
that we shall not find that God is able to give back the
prizes here, the Isaacs. He withdraws them that we may
turn from them to Himself, and when He has us for
Himself, He may give something here. He may give blessing
here on this earth; but let us remember that His desire
is to have us for Himself for His own sake, and, as we
fall into line, life is found there. It is the way of
life. The law of life demands that everything should be
for the Lord, without any other influence or
consideration - the Lord Himself.