There remains this one
section where everything is gathered up into Christ and
the believer. I
do want that we should really understand what it is that
the Lord is bringing us to in these days in which we are
living; that is, to understand, and very clearly
apprehend, the super-earthly setting of all that is going
on. (I have before used the word 'cosmic.' I do not like
that word at all, and I am not sure that everybody
understands or grasps the force of it; so perhaps if I
say the super-earthly nature and setting of things, you
will understand better what I mean.) The significance of
that is that things are not limited to that which is
going on on the earth, but there is another setting of
everything, a spiritual background, and it is there that
things pre-eminently count. That is the realm in which we
are moving, and it is what relates to that that is
heading up in these times to a final encounter and
conclusion, and therefore it is necessary that we should
be very much aware of that setting so far as Christ and
believers are concerned.
We have all read
accounts of the life of Christ, and we have found them
more or less interesting and, in a way, profitable. We
have found it interesting to know who the Roman rulers
were in His days: what sort of place it was in which He
was born: what Nazareth was like: the features of the
Lake of Galilee: what sort of men the fishermen were; and
a thousand and one other things like that related to His
earthly life, all very informative and of a certain kind
of value; but is that the life of Christ? Is that all? Is
that the story of Jesus? You see what I mean. The real
life of Christ was not in Galilee or Judea, not in this
place or in that, amidst these scenes or those. The real
life of Christ was altogether outside of that realm. The
story of Jesus is a story which can never be written in
terms of places and things and people. The real life, the
real story, is back of all that. It is set in the
super-earthly realm. Really, the interest is supernatural
interest, not merely human. The whole thing has a meaning
which may be entirely missed by studying only what He did
and where He went, what He said and what happened to Him.
It is that other that matters - the setting of it all as
in eternity, as at the centre of a great universe, in the
presence of spiritual and unseen intelligences and
forces. That is where the life of Christ is written, that
is where it is alone truly known, and, although we may
have all the other information, with all its interest or
even fascination, it does not get us very far. I ask you,
how far will it get you, in your desperate and terrible
conflict with sin and the powers of evil, to know that
Jesus was born in a little village called Bethlehem with
its terraces of houses, and so on? It does not get you
very far, does it? But see that other scene and know what
is happening there, and you may find that it has a very
great bearing upon your deepest spiritual experience.
That is what I mean by the super-earthly setting of it
all, and it is with that that we are concerned for a
little while now.
The
Sphere of His Triumph
So we will first of all
seek to see Christ as in that setting. We must therefore
recognize that there was one inclusive thing at the heart
of Christ's coming into this world. It had two sides, but
it was one thing. On the one side, it was the undoing of
the kingdom of Satan, in firstly the virtual, and then
the ultimate, destruction of that kingdom. Virtual - yes,
it was done. Ultimate - it has yet to be done. Demons
recognised the significance of His presence. "I know
thee who thou art, the Holy One of God" (Mark 1:24).
"Art thou come hither to torment us before the
time?" (Matt. 8:29). That points on to the
ultimate destruction. But His presence then, and His
Cross, were their virtual destruction. We come into the
line of the second, the ultimate, when we come into the
virtual; but that is for presently. On the one side,
then, it was this destruction of the kingdom of Satan
which lay right at the heart of Christ's coming; on the
other hand, there was the inauguration of the kingdom of
the heavens, the kingdom of God - now its virtual
inauguration, later its literal establishment. Those are
the things which are central to His coming; not, coming
to live the life of a good man, however good, and to
propound certain teachings, 'the teachings of Jesus,' and
to set a great example of how men ought to live, and then
to be the supreme example of how men ought to be willing
to die for their principles. How far short all that is of
the real meaning!
Now then, there are
three aspects of this of which we have just spoken. The
first is the universal - what we have called the cosmic -
relationship of everything in the life of the Lord Jesus,
and that is outlined for us here in the incarnation, the
temptation, the crucifixion, the resurrection and the
exaltation.
(a)
The Triumph of the Incarnation
Let us note how from
its very commencement even before it actually happened -
the incarnation, that coming in flesh and tabernacling
amongst us, touched those cosmic, super-earthly factors
of which we have been speaking: the factors which
constitute the kingdom of Satan, the very nature of Satan
- that pride, that rebellion, that perversity by which
that satanic kingdom is constituted and maintained here.
I say, even before His birth that was touched. Listen
again to the conversation which took place between the
angel and Mary as this great proposition was put to her.
It was not imposed upon her - that is the point; it was
not something brought to her and of which it was said,
'This must be, you must do this, it is required of you.'
No; it was a proposition, an intimation, the presentation
to her of a great Divine thought and intention, involving
her, so far as human life and relationships were
concerned, in the most difficult and sensitive position;
and that is suspended before her. She looks at it, weighs
it up. She sees the implications on the human side. She
sees what this could easily lead to - that she might be
an outcast of society. We will not follow that. She is
alive to it, and as you read that story it is not
difficult to see, to feel, that a real battle is going on
in her soul - a battle, and, at last, a victory; a
victory in her will and a victory which requires the
casting down to the earth of pride, of all self-interest.
A mighty victory - "Be it unto me according to thy
word" (Luke 1:38) - the absolute self-surrender of
Mary to the will of God. "Behold, the handmaid of
the Lord" - the servant spirit. You can see in the
light of that what is being touched. If pride had had a
place...! See what was involved so far as the kingdom of
Satan was concerned. If self-interest had governed, if
there had been rebellion, perversity, unwillingness to
let go - well, I expect the Lord would have found another
vessel, but, we do not know anything about that. What we
do see here is the great drama of the ages concentrated
in one woman's soul, and the issue is, Will she yield,
let go, submit, to the will of God? It was in that
self-abandonment that there came about that union of her
will with the will of God which brought into being, so
far as this earth was concerned, the One Who was going to
dethrone Satan; and the very dethronement of Satan
required the undoing of the pride, the rebellion, the
perversity, the selfhood, which had asserted itself in
God's universe; and the first battle was in that woman's
soul. We have the Christmas season and we talk about the
birth, but I do not think we have seen the terrific thing
which lay behind the very first step in the incarnation,
the setting of it right out there in that vast realm. We
have been a little afraid of talking too much about Mary
because of that wicked, pernicious system which exists,
which worships her, and has given an exaggerated and
false meaning to the words of her song - "Behold,
from henceforth all generations shall call me
blessed" (Luke 1:48); and, of course, we have the
phrase 'the blessed Virgin Mary' and we are afraid of it.
Well, the devil is very clever. He has covered up, by
that very falsehood, the truth that there in her soul the
first steps were taken in the conquest of his kingdom -
the overthrow of pride and the absolute surrender of will
so that the will of the woman became one with the will of
God, to make it possible for Gen. 3:15 to be fulfilled -
"I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy
head...."
But that is not all,
even then, in the incarnation. There is the mystery of
the virgin birth. We do not accept the theory of the
'immaculate conception' which makes Mary a sinless
creature. In the genealogy of Mary there were sinful
people and naturally she inherited a sinful nature: but
the angel's words to her concerning "that holy
thing" meant that Jesus would not inherit a sinful
nature, but would be sinless, uncorrupted and
incorruptible. By Divine act there was a clean cut
between the first Adam and the last as to nature, and the
last was an altogether other, which does not belong to
this realm but to that which is over there, where God is
in His apartness and in His difference, His 'otherness.'
Somehow there is a miracle being wrought by the Holy
Ghost to separate that Holy One from the unholy
inheritance. It was necessary, you see, for the undoing
of the kingdom of Satan. It is there, in the utter
separateness of Christ from the first Adam, that this
cosmic battle has its greatest force.
And then see how
interested the other forces were in this whole matter.
There is a tremendous activity going on, not only in
Bethlehem's stable, and in the fields around and in the
lands afar - whether it be the land from whence wise men
come, or in Judea where Herod is. There is a very much
bigger interest being taken in this whole thing. Here,
upon that victory in the soul of that woman, with the
principles that were involved, and that miracle of the
Holy Ghost in cutting in between the stream of Adam's sin
and that "holy thing" - here is focused the
whole course of the battle of the ages; yes, Gen. 3:15,
not only as a prophecy and a statement, but as something
with tremendous, far-reaching consequences immediately
arising. Oh, the murderer! The story of Cain and Abel
shows us the beginning of the battle of the two systems,
and that battle of two systems develops, expands, from
individuals to tribes, from tribes to nations; and you
see it all the way through the Bible, along two lines, on
two grounds - murder and mixture. If the adversary cannot
kill, as he sought to kill Moses and others of the
servants of the Lord who were in the line - if he cannot
slay the elect people and destroy them directly, he will
entice them, he will ensnare them, he will somehow bring
in mixture, by mixed marriages, mixed worship, and
accomplish his end. The Bible is just full of that -
murder and mixture in order to frustrate the overthrow of
the evil kingdom and the coming in of this other; and it
is all that universal interest and concern that is
focused here upon the incarnation. It is that which lies
behind Herod's murderous, iniquitous, barbarous edict to
destroy all the male children. We have known that done
before to get another in this line - in order to catch
one, just one. The devil stands at nothing to get his
object. The incarnation is set in that realm. The birth
of the Lord Jesus - oh, would to God we could strip it of
a lot of that which has come in and simply ruined its
spiritual value, these annual festivities! If only we
could see what a tremendous thing this is, beyond all
that has to do with eating and drinking, and so on, on
this earth! I think I have said enough to indicate that
in every one of these points the setting is the same.
(b)
His Triumph in Temptation
The temptation, we
know, was in that setting, and the same factors were in
that temptation. What were they? - mixture or murder.
Does that need threshing out in the three temptations of
the Lord Jesus after His baptism? It is quite clear that
seduction was the enemy's object - to seduce Him on to
his, the enemy's, ground. "All these things will I
give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me"
(Matt. 4:9). 'You can have, if...' Seduction by bribery;
and by bribery, corruption. The enemy will even quote
Scripture to seduce, urging the Lord to cast Himself down
from a pinnacle of the temple on the ground of a certain
promise in Scripture. "He shall give his angels
charge concerning thee: ...On their hands they shall bear
thee up, lest haply thou, dash thy foot against a
stone." But the Lord's response exposed the snare -
"Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy
God." There are some ways in which God will not
preserve us - the ways of presumption. Presumption is the
way of the devil. David might well pray, "Keep back
thy servant... from presumptuous sins" (Psa. 19:13).
It would have been presuming upon God and His word to
have done it at the suggestion of Satan. You see the
subtlety and depth of the seductive art to corrupt, to
murder. God could not have kept Him in that way, and He
would have died. How deeply laid was that plan! Yes, His
temptation is set in a far bigger world than men have
made of it. What a lot we have read about these
temptations, purely of an earthly nature and meaning.
(c)
The Triumph of His Death
As for the crucifixion
- our earlier meditations have been enough to show that
the crucifixion was something more than the death of a
good man for his convictions. It had very far-reaching
meaning, far beyond this earth. The Apostles give us very
clear indication of what took place out there when He
stripped off principalities and powers and made a show of
them openly, triumphing over them in His Cross (Col.
2:15). That is the setting.
(d)
The Triumph of His Resurrection and Exaltation
As for His resurrection
and exaltation, well, listen to Paul again - "When
he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his
right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule,
and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name
that is named, not only in this world, but also in that
which is to come" (Eph. 1:20-21). That is not
earthly, that is not just here. We see the setting of
Christ's raising and exaltation.
What we have thus far
said is only the first of the things included in this
great setting - the universal or cosmic relationship of
everything where Christ was concerned.
The
Dynamic Power of His Life
The second thing is
that which is gathered into the word 'life.' That was the
focal point, that was where the issue was really centred.
Life! The Lord Jesus knew that He had come with a dynamic
force and virtue which would answer everything. "I
came that they may have life" (John 10:10). "I
give unto (my sheep) eternal life" (John 10:28). He
knew that He had in His possession a dynamic force, the
nature and the power of which would solve everything -
what we call Divine life. It is not only a force, it is a
force because it is a nature; its power is found in its
nature. It is Divine, it is life. One thing against which
the enemy is set is that. All his activities are centred
upon that life - firstly to prevent men receiving it. And
what lengths he will go to in offering alternatives and
substitutes and imitations rather than that they should
have the real, the genuine, thing! What colossal systems
of religion he will build up just to get in the way of
one thing - to prevent the reception of Divine life, the
very life of God Himself. And then, when he has been
outwitted and the life is received and within, if he can
by any means do so he will throttle that life. He will
set himself to destroy the vessel of that life, the very
body in which it exists; and how many arts there are to
do that! How much wisdom is needed by the children of God
to see to it that they do not violate the laws of Divine
life! If that life can be by any means suppressed,
thwarted, hindered, limited, then that is the enemy's
object - to do it.
On the other hand, how
great is the need of the Lord's people for understanding
and education as to the ways of that life, and that they
should not touch that in which death is. That is the real
battle all the way along. You know, I am sure, what I
mean by touching death. You know it in your own heart. If
you speak a proud word, if you begin to boast as a
Christian of anything that is earthly, personal, if you
speak or act in ways which are unseemly for a child of
God, what is the feeling? Something seems to have died
within you - that is the feeling, as though something had
died. Your joy, your rest, your peace, your sense of the
Lord's nearness, have gone under a cloud. Something has
happened; you know it; you have touched death. The ways
of life demand that you should not do that sort of thing.
You learn; the Spirit of life is within, teaching in that
way. That is anticipating the believer's education, but
it is helpful here to see. This is the thing which
relates to that great cosmic conflict; it is life. If
that life can get in and have its way, and if the Lord's
people will learn how to co-operate with and correspond
to the laws of that life, why, in them and therefore
because of them, Satan is losing ground all the time, and
the other kingdom of the Son of God's love is gaining
ground, because that kingdom also is not an external
system; it is a spiritual thing which has to do with our
inner life. Let us leave that there.
Believers
in the Sphere of His Triumph
There is a third thing
to be mentioned - a multiplied seed. This is His way - a
corn of wheat passing its life through death into a
hundred, a thousand, other corns, multiplying and
multiplying. That is, the union, the organic and vital
union, of believers with Christ by which is fulfilled in
a spiritual sense the ordinance - "Be fruitful, and
multiply" (Gen. 1:22); by Divine life transmitted
through His death, a multiplied seed. That is the way to
the undoing of the kingdom of Satan, that is the vessel
set in the midst of the whole universal scene.
(a)
Triumph in a New Life Imparted
Now what is true of
Christ is true of believers, because we have simply
passed from Him personally to Him corporately. We have to
see that, just as much in our case as in His, we are set
in that cosmic setting. Our lives as believers, as
children of God, are set in and given that universal
significance. What is the meaning of new birth? We have
reduced that and limited it far too much to a matter of
our personal avoidance of hell and entrance into heaven,
of escaping the misery of our sins and coming into
salvation and therefore into peace, and when we have got
there, well, perhaps we shall learn a few things and grow
in grace a little; but it remains very largely for a
multitude of people quite a personal matter - their
salvation and the salvation of a lot of other persons as
such - and it all ends with the persons. But is that all?
What is new birth? Well, it is what we have just been
saying: this new life, which cannot be overcome of death,
introduced to a new organism - "quickened...
together with Christ... and raised up with him"
(Eph. 2:5,6) - a new organism with a new life, this
Divine life, imparted. And then the battle starts. Why do
we not understand the elementary conflicts of a new born
child of God? It is not until a child is born that the
battle starts; and the battle starts inside. Why? Because
with the birth of the child, it is set in a world of
other relationships where it is no longer just an
individual with a world to itself. It is now set in
another world; there must be other wills and other ideas;
and it finds itself up against something more. Its own
life comes into conflict with the life of that world. If
you try to perpetuate the conditions of the life of the
newborn child afterward, and make the whole world belong
to that child, you will ruin it. We speak of spoilt
children; what do we mean? We mean that we have made them
the centre of the world, as though the world was created
for them and they are to have everything they ask for,
and to be denied nothing. By such treatment we are
countering the whole principle of life in a child, that
of responsibility.
Carry that over to the
spiritual, for it is only a parable. When we are born
anew, and that Divine life is found within, we are
introduced into a world which is a world of conflict;
that life in us is at once thrown out into a realm of
conflict, of contending wills, and our spiritual
education begins along that line and that life has got to
find its own inherent, natural potentialities of
overcoming. That is exactly why Satan has been left here.
You may ask yourself often why, when the Lord Jesus met
him in the Cross, did He not utterly wipe him out? If
only He had done that, look what a lot would have been
prevented! Look at all the centuries of trouble for which
he is responsible! Why did not the Lord finish him there
and then? The answer is that in doing as He did the Lord
is going to get much more than He would have done by
finishing him. He has given us a chance of proving the
tremendous potency of Divine life, even to the point
where that life is ultimately triumphant over all the
power of death. It begins in new birth. Birth from above
is a tremendous thing in all it points to and includes.
(b)
Triumph in Transformation of Character
We go on to
transformation. What is the transformation of the
believer? In a word, it is simply breaking down on the
one hand and building up on the other. In the physical
realm that is going on in the body of every one of us.
There are two things going on, one breaking down the food
we eat and extracting the food properties. This is called
katabolism. The other activity is the positive building
up of the body by means of the breaking down of the food
compounds and the liberation of their potential energies.
This is called anabolism. The word which covers both of
these processes is metabolism, which means, change of
life. We all know how changed we feel after healthful
food when the body is needing it. It is like that
spiritually. Transformation in the Christian life is like
that. This life process in us is breaking down and
getting rid of what is poison and not required; saying,
'No, that is not good, we do not want that, that must
go'; on the other hand, there is the inward witness,
'This is what we need, what we want, this builds up.' If
Christians do not know and are not learning consciously
what is good and what is not good for them spiritually,
there is something wrong with their spiritual health. If
the life of God is having its way in us, those two things
are going on. We are getting more intelligent to things
that will not help us, and we cast them off; on the other
hand, we do know what is good, what is of value
spiritually, and we say, 'That is what I am after.' It is
spiritual intelligence, and by this twofold process of
breaking down and building up we are being changed. It is
a life action. The transformation of believers comes
along that line.
(c)
Triumph in Learning Christ through Trial
And you gather into
that all the New Testament has to say about spiritual
understanding - being "filled with the knowledge of
his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."
Our Christian education, then, lies in that direction,
but it comes along the line of testing, trial, adversity,
suffering. If we know anything at all, we have learned it
through suffering, through trial, through adversity. If
we know the Lord, how do we know Him? Well, our real
knowledge of the Lord is not book knowledge, but just
what we have learned in the fires, in the trials. We come
to knowledge when we have been really up against things
with the enemy.
(d)
Triumph in Manifestation of Secret Victories
We pass on for a word
on the manifestation of believers. What do we mean? I am
putting this all in that fuller, higher, spiritual realm.
The manifestation? - well, Romans 8 tells us, all about
that. "The earnest expectation of the creation
waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God"
(8:19). When the education is complete and the graduation
takes place, that which has been going on under cover,
hidden deep down in the believers, will be revealed. A
great deal goes on unsuspected by even those nearest at
hand - all those secret battles that others know nothing
about, all those conflicts in which we have to get away
alone and seek the Lord for grace, victory and strength.
The whole cumulative conflict of the spiritual life,
though so largely hidden from view, has been having an
effect, it has been doing something, it has been changing
us, making us different, making us more Christ-like, more
gentle, more humble, more dependent. It has all come out
of the secret education, but it is all going to be
manifested; sons are going to be manifested, and with
their manifestation it is going to be found that that is
what the whole creation has been waiting for. Why, the
creation was made for this, for a people to occupy it who
are like the Lord - full of His glory. And when that is
wrought out, then the creation's meaning is explained,
and the creation itself is delivered from the bondage of
corruption. That brings us to our final word -
glorification.
(e)
Triumph in Glorification
I pass over this very
rapidly and in a general way. After all, glorification is
only the manifestation of that life in fulness. It is the
very nature of that Divine life brought out to fulness;
and with that, the great cosmic battle ends. When we are
manifested with Him in glory the fight is finished, the
war is at an end, Satan has no more ground and no more
place, and the new Jerusalem comes down from God out of
heaven.
That is a lot said. I
am only concerned that our breadth, expansiveness of
thought, and many words, may not take away from the
immediate challenge and import. That is the thing that we
are in now. It is a grim business. There are tremendous
issues hanging upon this whole matter of our setting -
from our spiritual birth to our manifestation in glory;
tremendous things hanging upon our spiritual life - upon
what is going on in us, how we are learning, how we are
growing, how that life is having its way, how we are
coming to know the Lord, and how we are counting in the
unseen. True value does not attach to us merely as people
belonging to a religion called Christianity, who believe
and do certain things, but our real value is as living
men and women who count, just as our Lord counted, out
there in the realm far beyond this earth surface. If we
do not count there it is all a caricature, it does not
mean anything at all. The Lord make us count for Him in
that way!